Around the Regions Massachusetts PCAs rally for better wages

1199 Personal Care Attendants (PCAs) joined consumers, disability and elder advocates, and elected officials on March 1st to demand the fair pay and benefits needed to end the dangerous shortage of PCAs in Massachusetts.

“I became a PCA to care for one of my best friends and have remained in the profession even after her death,” said Candejah Pink, a PCA from Springfield and member of 1199SEIU. “I love caring for others but it’s not feasible to remain in the field without a second income. Every day, it is a struggle to afford necessities like gas and food, even when deemed essential. No one should live like this; I deserve to thrive too.”

PCAs begin negotiations for a new contract with the state this month, with the priority to increase wages and benefits necessary to pay workers a living wage. The high turnover and shortage of PCAs

FLORIDA Immigration clinic held in Florida

has left elders and people with disabilities waiting for months for help, often with no assistance at all in their homes, and limited ability to care for themselves.

PCAs and their consumers headed to the State House from the Embrace Memorial to deliver a joint letter to the newly elected Governor Maura Healey’s office highlighting demands to invest in the future of home care. Among the demands, PCAs are asking for an entry wage of $25 per hour and benefits such as retirement. The PCA program is funded by MassHealth, employing over 58,000 workers across the state.

The home care workforce is majority women and women of color with wages that are flat, absent of growth opportunity based on experience or training. Workers said that low wages are a major contributor to a staffing crisis badly damaged by high turnover.

1199 Green Caucus Renewed

In the Florida region, Union staff and volunteers held a legal clinic for members who needed immigration advice at their office in Miramar on March 18th. Recognizing that unscrupulous lawyers were charging $500$1,000 to complete the necessary paperwork to benefit from recently enacted regulations, 1199 stepped in to help. Under the Biden administration there are new rules allowing people living in the United States who have relatives in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to bring their families to join them here if they meet certain criteria. Immigration rules are constantly changing and other 1199 members who are working in the US under Temporary Protected Status also received legal advice on how to renew their applications.

Members Lobby Lawmakers in Albany

A group of 1199 members traveled to Albany on February 17-19th to take part in the New York State Association of Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislators caucus weekend. Union members were there to make their voices heard about the desperate need for state funding for safety net hospitals that serve the neediest communities as well as better wages for homecare workers who look after the most vulnerable.

 1199 Personal Care

“Bridging the Medicaid gap is not only important to healthcare workers,” Shamika Burnett Mathews from Oishei Childrens hospital in Buffalo, New York, told lawmakers, “it is also important to our hospitals who are carrying a financial burden. It is important to our patients and our families. The hospitals need the funding to invest in our workforce. We want to believe at the end of the day we have done everything that we can do for our patients. Honestly, since Covid, I really haven’t felt that way in years.”

Climate change is the biggest health threat in the 21st Century, according to the World Health Organization. The health sector, which includes our nation’s hospitals, is responsible for roughly 10% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

The 1199 Green Justice Caucus relaunched in February and as this issue went to press a national Climate Summit was due to take place virtually with the wider union family of SEIU on April 15th. Members across the nation are mobilizing their political power at the local, state and national level to press for laws which ensure that our planet remains livable for everyone.