It's Payback Time

1199 home care members enjoy large payouts after Union-led legal action.

Francisco Javier emigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic with his family in 2007. Like so many 1199 home care members who come here to build a better life, he faced an uphill struggle when he first arrived. “It was very difficult for us to find work at the beginning,” he remembers. But he was eventually able to find stable employment in an 1199 home care agency sixteen years ago, and for the past eleven years he has worked a 24-hour case.

He did not realize that his employer was not paying for legally required sleep and meal breaks until after 2015 when the Union negotiated language in its contracts ensuring that employers would pay for sleep and meal break interruptions. In 2019, the Union filed a class action grievance to seek compensation for those times when workers were not compensated properly on 24-hour shifts, as well as when workers did not receive travel time between cases and other wage violations. It was a long fight, but last year the arbitrator made a historic decision covering more than 100,000 current and former 1199SEIU home care at 42 New York City agencies. In April of this year, over 57,000 workers who submitted claims, received funds totaling $34 million. This was a landmark arbitration victory—the largest for homecare workers ever.

For Javier, the payout of almost $8,000 from the Special Wage Fund was a “huge help” and enabled him to pay off back rent. Most of the money will be sent back to the Dominican Republic. For instance, he employed a technician to install an air conditioner in his 89-year-old mother’s house there. Javier is also planning to invest in property for his own retirement.

Barbara Saunders is another 1199 home care member who received almost $8,000 from the fund. She retired in 2021 after almost 30 years as an HHA.

“I was so excited to get the check. My heart is still beating fast! I thought I was going to get about $300 from the Special Wage Fund. But it turned out to be nearly $8,000,” she remembers.

“I looked after a woman who suffered from schizophrenia. She was living with her brother who passed away. I was like family to her,” says Saunders who recently moved to Utica in Upstate NY to be nearer to her own son after 40 years living in Brooklyn.

As for the payout, she says: “I used roughly $2,000 of the award to pay outstanding bills. The rest went into savings. I now have an emergency fund for the first time in my life.”

Another 1199 home care member, Agnes Aikins, also received a large reward of nearly $8,000. She recently bought her own home in Suffolk County, Long Island and was able to put the money from the Special Wage Fund towards paying down the principal on her home loan.

The grievance which led to class action was made possible because 1199 home care workers negotiated language in their collective bargaining agreements allowing them to pursue wage and hour violations through arbitration. This meant that workers could be represented by the union in these cases and did not have to pay for lawyers of their own.

Before 2016, most employers did not have procedures in place to pay for sleep and meal interruptions on 24-hour shifts. In 2015, the Union negotiated language in the Collective Bargaining Agreements to ensure such payment procedures were in place. Since then, the Union has worked hard to ensure that workers know the procedures for reporting sleep and meal interruptions.

Once again, 1199 homecare workers have proven that there is strength in numbers, and that union power can make a real difference in their lives.