Posts tagged home-care workers
A Union for Home Care Workers? Many Are Wary.
July 17, 2026 // New York Focus independently spoke to more than a dozen aides for this story, and eight were either against it or leaning in that direction. Saba Nakhai, 32, who cares for her mother in Westchester full time, told New York Focus that she doesn’t see a place for the union in her work. “Maybe if I was working at a corporation, I would want a union,” she said. “But here, who’s the enemy, my mom?” Saba Nakhai, a young woman, stands smiling behind and holds the arms of her older mother, who is seated and wearing sunglasses. The room seems celebratory; a cake is on the table in front of them, and pictures of Saba hang from the ceiling. Saba Nakhai cares for her mother in Westchester full time. | Courtesy of Saba Nakhai To win, 1199 must convince workers like Nakhai that they need an advocate — not against their patients, but against the sprawling bureaucracy that sets their wages and benefits. If it’s successful, 1199 — already one of New York’s political kingmakers — will become even more powerful. Its membership and dues revenue will balloon, enabling more organizing and lobbying.
Calif. In-Home Workers Accuse Unions of Coerced Dues, Shakedowns
July 15, 2026 // May, 39, received training to become a home worker through Medicare’s In-Home Support Services, or IHSS, to care for her then-infant. In the summer of 2023, as a mandatory part of her training, she attended an IHSS orientation. May was expecting to learn about the program’s rules, payroll procedures, and her legal responsibilities for compliance. Instead, she says that 75% of the orientation was devoted to pressuring her to join the local chapter of the Service Employees International Union. At the end of the presentation, May said a representative from the Service Employees International Union local 2015 locked the doors of the orientation room and told attendees that “no one is leaving until everyone signs” a union membership card.
OPINION: Union Politics Is Poisoning Washington’s Business Climate
April 23, 2026 // Between 2021 and 2026, Washington fell from #16 to #45 in the Tax Foundation’s State Tax Competitiveness Index, a dramatic drop that signals a rapidly deteriorating business climate. Meanwhile, the cost of living has surged. The Washington Roundtable now ranks the state among the five most expensive in the country. This did not happen by accident. It is the direct outcome of a policy agenda backed by union money and enacted by elected officials who benefit from it: higher minimum wages, expansive paid-leave mandates, new healthcare requirements, and an increasingly complex regulatory environment.
Editorial: Hochul’s home-care ‘fix’ may not be corrupt — but it’s sure a disaster
December 18, 2025 // The smoking gun email — obtained via a FOIL request by Empire Center watchdogs — confirms that state officials were in contact with reps for Public Partnership LLC, or PPL, weeks before lawmakers even authorized bidding on managing the home-care program, and long before PPL won the five-year, $1 billion contract to oversee CDPAP... That’s because the revamp has opened to door for powerhouse SEIU 1199 to turn those 400,000 home-care aides into union members; in exchange for its massive windfall in dues, 1199 will surely immediately start pushing for pay hikes and other benefits for them.
UR home care workers are planning a one-day strike. Here’s why
February 24, 2025 // Last week, 1199SEIU issued a 10-day notice for an unfair labor practice strike on behalf of University of Rochester Medicine Home Care workers. A one-day strike is now planned. Since May 2024, professional and clinical home care workers have been negotiating their first union contract.
Fearing AI will take their jobs, California workers plan a long battle against tech
January 19, 2025 // More than 200 trade union members and technologists gathered in Sacramento this week at a first-of-its-kind conference to discuss how AI and other tech threatens workers and to strategize for upcoming fights and possible strikes. The Making Tech Work for Workers event was convened by University of California labor centers, unions, and worker advocates and attracted people representing dock workers, home care workers, teachers, nurses, actors, state office workers, and many other occupations.
Michigan passes bills allowing home care workers to unionize
September 30, 2024 // “We know that more and more Michiganders are going to need care, that number is not going to go down, they should have access to adequate care and it’s about building a union but it’s also about making sure that every single person in the state of Michigan has the care they deserve and the care that they need,” said Menz. The bills are now waiting for Governor Gretchen Whitmer to officially sign them into law. Senate Republican Leader Aric Nesbitt said in a statement sent to News 10: “These bills only further grow the size of the government while simultaneously shrinking the available resources meant to help those in need.”
SEIU celebrates $16 home care worker minimum wage, readies to lobby for $20
June 5, 2024 // The union in recent years has pushed to increase pay rates for the workforce whose average wage had hovered around $11 for nearly a decade. Last year, Nevada state lawmakers passed a bill establishing a $16 an hour minimum wage for home care workers. “Sixteen is great,” said Clark County Commissioner William McCurdy, a former SEIU organizer who spoke at the event Thursday. “It shows the power of collective mobilization. But I think that we are going to do a little bit better next legislative session.” An increase to $20 per hour for home care workers would be possible by adjusting the Medicaid reimbursement rate for the employers who provide home care services to $30 per hour.
New Law Redefines Employees and Contractors
March 7, 2024 // Data suggest worker misclassification may be the exception rather than the rule in many industries. Surveys consistently show that most independent contractors prefer their independence. Around 79% of them prefer their arrangement over a traditional job, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, while fewer than one in 10 contractors want a traditional work arrangement. "Since a lot of older Americans do seek out these flexible forms of work as they near retirement — or after — this rule will likely lead to reduced work opportunities for them." Implemented in 2020 when acting U.S. Labor Secretary Su was California's labor commissioner, California's Assembly Bill 5, or AB5, similarly set out to protect workers by getting more people on the payrolls. But many Californians working as legitimate contractors suddenly lost income after businesses and nonprofits stopped working with them as freelancers and didn't hire them as employees.
HOUSE DEMOCRATS ADVANCE SEIU BILL IN OREGON KNOWING IT WOULD STRIP CAREGIVERS OF THEIR RIGHTS
February 29, 2024 // Specifically, Oregon’s HB 4129 would require the state to contract with up to two private vendors to administer part of the state’s Medicaid-funded homecare program. By doing so, it would create a new employment model governed by private-sector labor law, under which caregivers would lose their protections under the Harris ruling. SEIU 503 is the union purporting to represent Medicaid-compensated homecare workers in Oregon, and it’s has taken a big hit since Harris.