State home care workers to get raise, workers’ comp

The General Assembly overwhelmingly approved an amended contract for Connecticut’s 8,500 home care workers Wednesday, raising wages and adding workers’ compensation.

“It really is a matter of equity and fairness,” said Senate President Martin Looney, D-New Haven. “Many of these workers make $13.50 an hour. In addition, over 90 percent of the workers are women, so this is women’s pay equity as well.”

The Senate voted 32 in favor of the resolution, with four members not voting, a strong display of bipartisan cooperation on a union contract.

After nearly three hours of debate, the House followed suit voting 127 to 16 to pass the contract, with eight members not voting.

Home care workers, also known as personal care attendants, bathe, clothe, feed, transport and shop for elderly and disabled residents, allowing them to stay in their homes instead of moving to institutions.

They cared for 46,000 patients in the state in 2017, up 20 percent from last count, said Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Baltic.

The contract will raise home care workers’ pay to $16.25 per hour by 2020.

Most make under $14.25 per hour; some make less than $13.53, said officials from the home workers’ union, Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union.

The agreement provides personal care attendants with workers’ compensation paid for by the state.

Elderly and disabled people who hire an individual home care worker for more than 27.5 hours per week now have to pay for workers’ compensation policies themselves. They often hire multiple workers a week to avoid paying for workers’ compensation, leaving the assistants without pay if they are injured on the job.

Home care workers are not state employees, but private sector employees paid by the state departments of Social Services and Developmental Services under programs such as Medicaid. They won the right to collectively bargain with the state in 2012.

They do not receive a pension, retirement security or employer-based state health insurance.

More than half of the 8,500 Connecticut home care workers are unionized, according to SEIU 1199 New England, their union. A 2014 Supreme Court case Harris v. Quinn ruled nonunionized home care workers can benefit from collective bargaining, even if they do not pay union fees.

The total cost of the new contract to the state, after federal Medicaid reimbursement, will be $725,790 in fiscal year 2018, almost $7 million in 2019 and over $9.3 million in 2020, according to estimates from the Office of Policy and Management.

House Republicans raised concerns about approving higher wages for these employees outside the budget process while the state struggles with growing future deficits. Rep. Melissa Ziobron, R- East Haddam, argued passionately that this contract should have been given a hearing before the Appropriations Committee and not handled as an emergency certification.

“My constituents know that the real emergency that is happening in our community is that we don’t have a budget,” she said. While she said she valued personal care attendants work, she suggested, “There are many other programs that have been short-funded that could use that money.”

Rep. Rob Sampson, RWolcott, questioned whether home care workers should be unionized.

In his chamber, Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano, of North Haven, disagreed.

“These people need to be paid accordingly,” he said. “It doesn’t matter union or non-union. The issue is the care they provide.”

House Democrats, lead by Rep. Mike D’Agostino, of Hamden, fiercely defended the need for the pay increases and protections.

“Personal care assistants in this state perform some of the most difficult, draining and demanding work that there is,” he said. The money to cover the new contract in 2018 and 2019 is in the biennial budget, he said.

Ahead of the vote, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy gave their support to the new contract in a press conference Tuesday.

SEIU 1199 spokesperson Jennifer Schneider called the contract a “vital step forward.”

“Workers who spend their days caring for others deserve to be able to earn wages that allow them to care for their own families,” she said.