Door opened to home care workers pay hike
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
A number of people were in attendance at the Joint Committee on Elder Affairs at the State House to discuss home care worker wages.
Amid a national push to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour, home care workers in Massachusetts urged lawmakers Tuesday to boost their pay level.
Four months after the state reached a deal with the Service Employees International Union Local 1199 to bring the minimum wage for personal care attendants up to $15 an hour by 2018, workers and union representatives asked the Joint Committee on Elder Affairs to extend that rate to the approximately 20,000 home care aides who work with seniors, the chronically ill and people with disabilities in Massachusetts.
"Keeping clients safe and healthy in their own homes is why I do what I do, but the lack of stable hours and low pay makes it difficult for me to keep working in home care," said Dottie Corbett. "I am not guaranteed any hours, and this has made me fall behind on both my rent and my bills. If I hustle really hard and make too many hours by stringing together many clients over a short period in a day, then I'm not eligible for food stamps, which I recently had to apply for."
Corbett told the committee she earns no benefits, works a second job in a supermarket and has not been able to take a vacation in 12 years.
A bill sponsored by Rep. Daniel Cullinane (H 3404) would raise the varied hourly wage for home care workers -- defined in the legislation as anyone employed by a home care agency to provide health, homemaker, personal care companion or chore services -- to $15 an hour in annual increments over three years. The bill would also create a registry of all workers employed by home care agencies, and require those agencies to submit "comprehensive annual cost reports."
Cullinane, a Dorchester Democrat who sits on the elder affairs committee, said he expected the home health industry would counter that raising wages and submitting to additional oversight could lead agencies to charge higher rates to absorb the extra costs.
"Let's have that conversation, but we need to do so in the lens that increased accountability and oversight in this rapidly growing industry needs to be made a priority, and that if you run a quality home health care agency, you should want to be a partner in ensuring that bad actors and bad employers seeking to take advantage of people in the commonwealth just to make a quick buck should have no place in this industry in Massachusetts," Cullinane told the committee.
Representatives from trade associations who testified Tuesday said they were willing to work with the bill's supporters and called for a collaborative process.
James Fuccione, director of legislative and public affairs for the Home Care Alliance of Massachusetts, said he appreciated that wage inequality issues were being highlighted, but said that a $15 minimum wage "doesn't address the many classifications of workers there are within the elder services network."
In written testimony, Home Care Aide Council Executive Director Lisa Gurgone told the committee that when it comes to raising wages, "the single biggest challenge we have faced has been the lack of adequate resources."
"It will be essential for the Commonwealth to conduct a comprehensive cost analysis of increasing home care worker wages," Gurgone wrote. "In addition, a funding source will need to be identified to support the goal of achieving a $15 wage as proposed in the legislation."
Gurgone also said she would like to see the state examine its existing regulations and standards around home care to make sure nothing is duplicated.
Rep. Denise Garlick, the committee's House chair, said that the bill raises "a conversation that we ought to have."
"But I think there's also a lot of homework, and there is a great deal we have to do to fully embrace the issue the way it deserves to be embraced," the Needham Democrat said.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments