SANTA CRUZ — Caregivers will be participating in a national day of action Thursday at two Santa Cruz locations: In-Home Support Services (IHSS) Santa Cruz and Hearts & Hands Post Acute Care & Rehab Center.
According to a prepared statement from SEIU Local 2015, a union that represents approximately 400,000 nursing home and home care workers across the state, IHSS and nursing home employees will gather to put pressure on the leadership in Washington debating national relief and recovery measures.
Specifically, the workers are asking President Biden and members of Congress to fulfill the promise of the Build Back Better Plan and commit $450 billion to the caregiving system in the next relief package. This could help create more than one million jobs that come with the opportunity to unionize, SEIU said, as well as focus the minority women who hold down the caregiving industry at the forefront of economic recovery.
“The workers are demanding legislative action that transforms caregiving jobs, which have been deemed essential during the pandemic but all too often are not respected, protected and paid as such, into good, union jobs with family-sustaining wages and benefits,” the representatives of SEIU Local 2015 wrote.
Those workers who have cared for parents, grandparents and the disabled during the pandemic have one simple motto: “Respect us. Protect us. Pay us.” The protection element is especially necessary, the unionized workers say, as more than 170,000 COVID-19 related deaths are tied to the long-term care industry. These demands will be made in California, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Oregon and Washington D.C. through car caravans, rallies, vigils and more.
When IHSS workers gather at 9 a.m., it will not be their first action as they demonstrated last week to tell county leaders bargain wage increases are important to and for essential frontline workers. It will be the first action for Hearts & Hands employees at 11 a.m., individuals who SEIU Local 2015 states have faced tough negotiations for more than three years.
“Union members are fighting back to decry the Hearts & Hands facility following the employer’s efforts around union decertification in exchange for wage increases this past fall,” the union representatives said. “Members are going back to the table to demand respect for workers’ choice to unionize and bargain in good faith.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 80 residents of Hearts & Hands tested positive according to its licensing agency, the California Department of Public Health. A total of eight residents died.
The Sentinel was unable to get in touch with IHSS Santa Cruz or Hearts & Hands before posting.
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