This weekend, the United Home Care Workers of Pennsylvania (UHWP), a partnership between SEIU Healthcare PA and the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME), voted unanimously to ratify a contract with the Consumer Workforce Council (CWC), a joint entity of five Centers for Independent Living across Pennsylvania. The deal is an important and historic step for home care workers.
This was the second time that workers worked to ratify a contract with the CWC, after original efforts were quashed by the Corbett Administration. After winning voluntary recognition from the CWC in 2011, Gov. Corbett outsourced fiscal management of consumer directed home care to a for-profit, out-of-state company, effectively putting the CWC out of business and voiding the contract.
“We thought we had it,” said Tiffany Howard, a home care worker for Liberty, one of the Centers for Independent Living. “Then Gov. Corbett took it away and we had to start from scratch.”
“It’s hard,” said Howard. “When you’ve been working for a company and you’ve been there and been loyal and you’ve been doing a good job, and then they take things away from you and you don’t know why.”
Undaunted, home care workers looked for a way to reclaim their victory. To, as one home care worker put it, “regain what they had and not lose their spirit or momentum.”
More than a year later, the UHWP and the CWC partnered to re-imagine the Centers for Independent Living as home care agencies and set to work bargaining for a new contract. That contract was signed Saturday night, July 27, 2013.
“It was hard to start all over,” said Howard, “But Liberty was willing to work with us, sit down with us and make it better for everyone.”
This signed contract, covering 1600 home care workers across Pennsylvania, is the result of countless hours of meetings, trainings, home visits, briefings and political action days and the pure determination of the dedicated members and staff who refused to accept defeat in their more than 10-year struggle.
Howard was quick to point out that home care workers weren’t just fighting for themselves — they were fighting for their consumers, and their consumers were behind them every step of the way.
“The consumers are very supportive,” said Howard. “They want to make sure we’re taken care of, because at the end of the day you have to take care of yourself so you CAN take care of someone else. If you’re not OK, whoever you’re with – the consumer, children, grandparents, anybody – are not going to be taken care of.”
According to Howard, that’s what being part of the union is all about — working together.
“We need this,” she said. “Everybody needs to be taken care. We’re all working hard to help one another at the end of the day.”