Like the author of "Why personal care attendants should beat back the union" (Aug. 8), I am fortunate to do a job I love, providing home care for my disabled siblings. Unlike her, I am a member of the Service Employees International Union, Healthcare Minnesota (SEIU HCMN) — the union she disparaged in the Star Tribune.
Along with thousands of home care workers across the state, I choose to be part of my union, because I know firsthand how important it is to improving the care people with disabilities and seniors receive.
My mother has adopted six children with special needs from the foster care system. Currently, three of my siblings at home receive PCA care. They would all be institutionalized without PCAs. All of them have disabilities that are no fault of their own. Our state failed them as children, and PCAs help stop the state from failing them again.
A few years before home care workers had a union, one of my siblings lost all but 30 minutes a day of his PCA time. Ever since, he has been homeless and jobless for most of the past seven years and incarcerated multiple times. All of these problems could have been avoided with the help of a PCA. PCAs serve as an external brain to help keep my siblings functioning and responsible, the least they deserve after the trauma they have already experienced.
We tried extensively to lobby the system for help personally, but saw no progress. As Republicans, we were apprehensive when the union first came along, but felt it was our last option. We knew organized labor and being conservative are not mutually exclusive, although they are perceived that way all too often. We were hopeful that SEIU HCMN might be the help we so desperately needed.
Fast-forward to today: We have won important first steps with SEIU HCMN in our fight to improve the home care industry for care recipients and workers across Minnesota (including the commentary writer's family, even though she pays no dues to the union). In our first contract, we won a paid-time-off benefit for the first time, so we don't have to choose between working sick and paying our bills; a training fund to improve the quality of care for the people we serve, and a $2 increase in the minimum wage for our work. One of my siblings' PCAs is married with two children, and for the first time this year could use his paid time off instead of fretting over his bills.
The lawyer behind the latest stunt to undermine our union has tried unsuccessfully for two years to destroy our union through legal challenges. Those efforts failed, and now he has launched this current campaign. Because of a Supreme Court ruling, home care workers across the U.S. are already "open shop," which means membership is voluntary.
Everyone benefits from the bargaining and advocacy efforts of SEIU HCMN. If the membership grants you a benefit, join. If it does not, you do not have to join.
