This
Labor Day is the first day many of the roughly 27,000 home health
care workers in Minnesota will receive holiday pay as a direct result
of their union’s second contract with the state, which took effect
July 1.
In
addition to gaining time-and-a-half pay for five holidays each
year, the
new contract also raises the minimum wage for these workers
to $12 an hour, increases the amount of paid time off they can
accrue, expands their paid training opportunities and outlines the
further development of an online registry where clients who receive
support services can connect with care providers.
“This
[Labor Day] is the first time ever that I can remember being paid
time-and-a-half for working on a holiday as a PCA,” said Dawn
Burnfin of Chisholm, Minn. She has worked as a home health care
worker for about 23 years and served on the bargaining team for the
new two-year contract.
As
a longtime worker in the home health care industry, Burnfin is no
stranger to the challenges of the job, which often include working
holidays for clients who depend on day-to-day specialized care. “They
wouldn’t be able get out of bed and get something to eat if we
weren’t there,” she said. “You can’t just not be there for
the people that need you.”
Another
challenge Burnfin said she faced as a PCA was when her employment
agency lowered her hourly wage for entire pay periods when she worked
overtime. She noted that in instances like these, when she is faced
with paycheck disputes, her union can point her in the right
direction to find resolution. She has since reported this claim to
the U.S. Department of Labor. Last year, Workday Minnesota
investigated the prevalence of wage theft in the state’s home
health care industry, and found one 2013 case of 33 employees who
were shorted $94,783.64 in overtime pay.
Among
the progress SEIU Healthcare Minnesota has made for home health care
workers in the past two years, Burnfin stated that one of the most
significant to her personal life has been the paid time off and the
online registry.
Before
joining her union, she recalled how difficult the decision was to
miss work, knowing if she did that it would be harder to make ends
meet for her family and difficult for her clients to find another PCA
in rural Minnesota.
“Now,
my client can find someone to cover if I need to take off to be with
my husband who is having surgery…and I can use that paid time off
that I’ve accrued to not miss a mortgage payment or have my
utilities shut off,” she said.
Under
the new contract, she is now earning one hour of paid time off for
every 43 hours she works.
While
Burnfin and other home health workers have been pleased with the
strides they have made in the past three years, they also believe
more could be done. Ever since the state cut
the contract funding in half and SEIU members had to make
changes to their tentative
agreement from early 2017, Burnfin noted the desire to regain
what they had lost.
“We’re
not giving up. We are going to continue working on what we were
promised by the legislature, what our clients deserve, what we as
workers deserve,” she said.
>> The article above was written by Joey Getty and is reprinted from WorkdayMinnesota.
1 comment:
Trump will win Minnesota in 2020. Easily.
There won't be enough room in the prisons for all the Socialists. Antifa will have to build a massive wall around Minneapolis and then they will have to face their worst nightmare as they face daily IED attacks from Muslims.
Just like Tucker Carlson said the other night - the revolution always consumes itself.
Always in such a free society will the "revolution" become self defeating. Want proof with your own eyes? Watch how this whole NFL ordeal plays out. All these pseudo-intellectual millionaires are eating crow right now! Pseudo-intellectualism only works in a CLASSROOM! Always falls apart in the real world.
Common sense always prevails.
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