Home Care

Shomit Sengupta, West Hartford
Lynette Dockery, Meriden
Karen Dowou, Consumer-Employer
Angel Hawes,

MAY 2022

As the Home Care providers Union, we are united around quality care for Consumers and quality jobs for caregivers. We are proud to share that after 18 months of actions, rallies, bargaining sessions, lobby days, countless zoom meetings and phone calls (and so much more!), lawmakers approved our milestone PCA contract, and we have received confirmation that the first raises went into effect as of Sunday 5/8/22:

PCAs: increase from $16.25 to $17.25/hour
PCAs or DSPs Above the Minimum rate above: 2% increase
Respite/Companion: Increase to $16.30/hour
Per Diem Workers: 4% increase* (effective date TBD)
ILSTs: Increase to $35.20/hour

Now that State lawmakers have approved our contract, we’ll turn our focus to speeding up the required approval for several *brand new provisions in our contract* from the Center for Medicaid Services (CMS) in Washington, DC. Once that approval is granted within the coming months, the following improvements will also go into effect:

Lump sum bonuses: all PCAs employed 4/1/21-3/31/22 will receive a 6% lump sum bonus on wages earned during that 12-month period. PCAs must still be employed in the waiver program to receive the bonus, and the bonus will be issued within 45 days of CMS approval.
Health Insurance Premium Assistance: all PCAs who do not qualify for Husky/Covered CT (or have access to health insurance through another job, spouse or parent) will be eligible for a Premium Assistance card equal to 6% of annual income to buy health insurance on the exchange to be issued within 90 days of CMS approval.
Paid Time Off Accrual: all PCAs accrue paid time off at an accrual rate of 0.025 per hour worked, up to 40 hours/year for full-time PCAs. Unused Paid Time off accrued can be rolled over to the next year up to a max of 80 hours. Accrual will begin pending CMS approval.
Agreement Expires June 2023, giving us the ability to go back in less than a year to fight for more!

Here is a link to the full agreement: https://bit.ly/3uw3GiE.

Other Resources & Links:

Paid Family & Medical Leave: The new Paid Family & Medical leave law went into effect 1/1/22 and is designed for CT workers who need time off due to a serious health condition or to care for a loved one with a serious health condition (when 3+ consecutive days off are needed). Apply here: https://bit.ly/3v0QjYr

COVID-19 Essential Worker Relief Fund: If you had COVID between March 10th, 2020 and December 31st 2022, you are eligible to apply for the COVID-19 Essential Worker Relief fund to cover missed work, out of pocket medical costs, or burial costs. Link here: https://bit.ly/3Phi4DJ

Workers Compensation Insurance: For work-related injury or illness (including COVID-19 contracted at work), file for workers comp at: https://bit.ly/3NbVRF9

If you haven’t been paid accurately or on time: File a Notice of Nonpayment at https://bit.ly/39p592c

If your Consumer needs to contact their Care Manager Regarding budgetary problems or to Access Overtime: Contact your care manager for DSS consumers at https://bit.ly/3N9jtdy and for DDS consumers at https://bit.ly/3PmE0NO. If your Consumer needs to request a fair Hearing to appeal changes to their budget, go to https://bit.ly/3MeozVX.

If you need access to PPE (including specialty PPE): for DSS consumers at https://bit.ly/3l84Xa1 and for DDS consumers at https://tinyurl.com/y5hrleee (Eng) or https://tinyurl.com/y3gbccus (Span)

How to Join the Union: Help home care workers have a stronger voice by standing with us and joining the Union today at: https://bit.ly/3NeHOP6