Grassroots labor advocates say the $30 million awarded to New York home care workers to make up for underpaying them is an insult, claiming they are getting a fraction of what they’re owed — and the true figure may be as much as $6 billion.
People rally in support of living wages for home care workers in New York City, December 14, 2021People rally in support of living wages for home care workers in New York City, December 14, 2021A financial win for underpaid home health care union workers did not nearly go far enough, some labor organizers said Monday.
The arbitration award covers more than 100,000 workers in all, but only between 5,000 and 7,000 of them have worked on 24-hour shifts, 1199SEIU said. Grassroots labor advocates said those workers are set to get a tiny fraction of what they’re owed, and that the true figure may be as much as $5 billion to $6 billion.
After reviewing financial documents provided by the home care employers, Scheinman decided that each agency must pay out $250 for each of their current or former employees covered by the arbitration case. Scheinman wrote that he was convinced that’s “the maximum that can be imposed without causing serious disruption and upheaval to a vital service.”
But some of those workers are owed more than $200,000, according to labor groups involved in the Ain’t I A Woman Campaign. The Chinese-American Planning Council “has always agreed that home care workers deserve greater compensation,” Wayne Ho, the organization’s president and CEO, said in a statement responding to the arbitration decision. “However, the only path to providing any backpay beyond what is required by law and the arbitrator's decision would be for the state to do so, as it would be impossible for Medicaid-funded nonprofit home care agencies.