Archive for ‘DCA initiatives’

Home Care Workers Poised to Win Basic Labor Protections

Posted by on December 15th, 2011 at 2:07 pm | 4 Comments »

The fight to win basic labor protections for home care workers may soon be won, thanks to a proposed rule announced today by President Obama and U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis. The rule would extend minimum wage and overtime pay guarantees and other protections to these workers under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). 

Home care workers are currently excluded from FLSA because they are considered mere “companions,” an outdated ruling that fails to account for the health and personal care services they provide to elders and people with disabilities. “Extending minimum wage and overtime protections to home care workers has been the Direct Care Alliance’s flagship issue since the Supreme Court ruled against Evelyn Coke,” says Leonila Vega, executive director of the Direct Care Alliance (DCA). “We are delighted that the end of this injustice is in sight.” Continue reading »

Huffington Post Shines Light on FLSA Companionship Exemption

Posted by on December 6th, 2011 at 11:24 am | No Comments »

“If you’re in this job for money, you’re in it for the wrong reason, but I’d like to see that change someday,” says a Florida home care worker in Healthcare Workers on Verge of Winning Equal Rights, Higher Pay. The December 1 Huffington Post article looks at the companionship exemption that denies home care workers overtime pay and other basic protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act, explaining that the White House is considering a rule that would end the exemption.

Paul Sonn, legal co-director of the National Employment Law Project, told writer Dave Jamieson, who covers workplace issues for the influential blog, that undoing the companionship exemption is “a really important change to build a foundation for improving these jobs.” Jamieson also quotes Direct Care Alliance Policy Director David Ward, who says the high turnover rates for home care aides prove that the current system of low pay and few benefits doesn’t work. “We need to make greater investment in the workers” says Ward. “There’s going to be an increasing demand.”

The Florida worker, who recently contributed a DCA blog post about how her lack of overtime pay and pay for travel time between clients affects her and her family, told Jamieson she has to work twice as many hours as her husband to earn the same amount he does. “My life pretty much revolves around my job,” she said.

Improving Care Quality by Developing Direct Care Worker Leaders

Posted by on November 29th, 2011 at 11:12 am | 2 Comments »

Beverly Faulkner

Developing direct care workers’ leadership skills can be an effective way of improving job and care quality in long-term care, according to early feedback from a collaboration between the Direct Care Alliance and four New York City-area nursing homes. The program is part of a pilot being conducted by DCA, the Beth Abraham Family of Health Services in New York City, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

The project partners developed a new job description for certified nursing assistants (CNAs), creating an intermediary Senior Resident Care Associate position between the traditional CNA position and licensed nurses. The main goal is to develop direct care workers’ leadership skills so they can better advocate for improved working conditions, career advancement, and respect. The new position essentially creates a CNA career track, allowing seasoned nursing assistants to take on more responsibility and earn more pay without having to abandon the profession.

According to sociologist Deborah Little, PhD, the program’s evaluator, 30 CNA leaders—“the cream of the cream of the crop”—will be trained over the next three years. The first ten came from two of Beth Abe’s four homes. Each of the remaining two homes will contribute ten more. Training began for the first group this fall and begins for the last group next spring.

Continue reading »

Life Without Overtime: Averaging 60 to 80 Hours a Week

Posted by on November 29th, 2011 at 10:32 am | 1 Comment »

Home care worker Evelyn Coke (pictured) fought for the right to overtime pay.

The home care worker whose story you are about to read chose to remain anonymous for fear of losing her job.

In order for me to pull my weight, I average 120 to 160 hours every two weeks. My husband loads trucks 40 hours a week. It takes me almost twice as long to earn what he does. I can work in two weeks what some people work in an entire month, because we home care aides don’t get paid time and a half for overtime in Florida.

A couple days a week, I work from 8 in the morning until 8 at night. Sometimes I work from 8 at night until 3 in the afternoon. I spend a lot of my days just going from one client to another from early morning to late at night.

These days I’m not driving too far between clients, but there were times when I was traveling 30 to 50 miles a day to get from one client to the next. We used to get paid for that travel time and mileage, but now we don’t, and gas costs a lot more now than it used to. Continue reading »

Strengthening Social Security to Improve Direct Care Workers’ Retirement Security

Posted by on November 14th, 2011 at 9:38 pm | No Comments »

Download a PDF or Flash version of the brief

Recent proposals to cut Social Security benefits would threaten the already fragile retirement security of direct care workers, according to Maintaining and Improving Social Security for Direct Care Workers. Instead, argues the 16-page issue brief, the program can and should be strengthened in ways that will increase retirement security for these workers.

Author Shawn Fremstad of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) explains why Social Security is particularly important to direct care workers, who are “among the most poorly compensated and economically insecure workers in the United States.” Only about one in every four direct care workers have employer-provided retirement benefits, says the brief, and few can afford to amass any other savings, so the great majority rely solely on Social Security if they become disabled or retire. But workers who have put in a lifetime of poorly paid work as caregivers are eligible only for extremely modest Social Security benefits. Continue reading »

Life Without Overtime: I Wish I Could Take Weekends Off

Posted by on November 8th, 2011 at 10:37 am | 1 Comment »

Home care worker Evelyn Coke fought for the right to overtime pay.

The home care worker whose story you are about to read chose to remain anonymous for fear of losing her job.

I receive $7.75 per hour. We home care workers don’t get paid overtime in Texas, so I usually work 50 or 60 hours a week. Sometimes it’s less, but sometimes it’s more. Usually I have to work every day of the week.

I work for two agencies now, one for 20 hours a week and the other for 20 or more, sometimes more than 40. But even when I worked for just one company, I didn’t get time and a half for all that overtime. I don’t get any benefits either.

I got into this work after I started taking care of my mom and my dad in 1987. My friend said, “Do you want to care for old people?” I said “No way! I don’t want to do that kind of job. I just want to take care of my mom and my dad.” Then I didn’t find another job. I told my friend I’d try it, but as soon as I found another job I’ll quit. But I never tried to find another job, because once I started doing this work I found out that I love it. Continue reading »

Life Without Overtime: Was I Living? Was I Really Taking Care of Anybody?

Posted by on November 1st, 2011 at 3:45 pm | 7 Comments »

Home care worker Evelyn Coke (pictured) fought for the right to overtime pay.

The home care worker whose story you are about to read chose to remain anonymous for fear of losing her job.

Here in Florida, when you work for an agency you don’t get time and a half for overtime. Most of the agencies will give you all the time in the world—and you have to take it, if you’re not getting overtime and you’re only making $8.25 an hour. You need to book the hours; you don’t have much choice. The only time I’ve gotten time and a half is on a holiday, and that’s because they’re in a bind and that’s the only way they could get someone to cover it.

I made $8.25 when I first started and worked my way up to $9 an hour. After taxes, that comes to $7.50 an hour, for everything I’m doing. I never got any overtime when I worked for agencies, so I had to work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, just to get by. I was bringing home $750 a week [before taxes], but was I living? Was I really taking care of anyone? Continue reading »

Demonizing Caregivers No Way to Reduce Elder Abuse, says DCA Issue Brief

Posted by on October 25th, 2011 at 3:37 am | 1 Comment »

“The personal, often intimate nature of caregiving relationships can make it difficult to define, detect, and deter the abuse of elders and people with disabilities by the caregivers they rely on. Nonetheless, there are a number of steps that employers and policymakers can take to support good care and prevent abuse,” says No Excuse for Abuse, the ninth in a series of Direct Care Alliance policy briefs.

Arguing that we cannot reduce abuse until we understand its root causes, the nine-page issue brief looks at what we know—and what we don’t know—about how and why care recipients get abused by their caregivers. Author Elise Nakhnikian notes that the great majority of abuse appears to be committed not by paid professionals but by informal caregivers, usually close family members, and that it is often caused by “complex and stressful dynamics between caregiver and care recipient, with one party’s actions and attitudes affecting the other and creating a ‘reactive pattern or feedback loop.’”

Simply blaming and punishing those who abuse will not solve the problem, she writes. In fact, demonizing caregivers can make things worse, pushing the issue even further underground and tarnishing the reputation of an honorable profession. Continue reading »

Conference Inspires and Informs Florida Caregivers

Posted by on October 25th, 2011 at 3:01 am | 1 Comment »
FPACG 2011 conference attendees

Conference attendees with door prizes

The 16th annual Florida Professional Association of Care Givers (FPACG) conference, which was co-sponsored this year by DCA, was inspirational from the start. After a welcome and invocation by CNA/HHA Rita Andrews and CNA/HHA Nancy Strebel, the Air Force junior ROTC from Lake Brantley High School presented the colors. What a thing that was to witness! Next on the agenda was the presentation of awards by FPACG President Emeritus and Director of Education Terry Bucher to FPACG’s Career Care Giver of the Year and its two Care Givers of the Year. This was the first time in the history of the association that the award was given to two people in one year. Continue reading »

Working for Less than Minimum Wage

Posted by on October 18th, 2011 at 9:02 am | 6 Comments »

Clara Glenn

I’ve been doing home care work for 30-some years, and I love it. I tell everybody I wouldn’t trade it for the world. You have to have a heart to do this work. You can’t just do it for no reason. You have to be dedicated. I always put God first in my life, and that carries me through.

About 15 years ago, I worked for a home care agency that paid less than minimum wage. The minimum was $5.15 at the time, and we were making $4.90. I think that was a reason a lot of the girls left. We stayed as long as we could and then we went on to other places.

I stayed because of the clients. I liked them and they liked me. We made our own little family, and that meant more to me than the money. As long as they were getting good care, that was really what mattered to me. Even now, some of their grandchildren send me Christmas cards and birthday cards and when they get married they call me up. They were like family, and I knew they needed help. Continue reading »

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