AFSCME represents 125,000 homecare providers across the nation and has the history and experience protecting the Vermont programs we depend on in order to improve the quality of services we provide our care recipients.
- California: AFSCME won health benefits, annual cost of living raises, worker’s compensation coverage and more paid hours for the providers we represent. In Riverside County, CA (each county in California bargains separately), pay rates increased by 62% between 2003 and 2010. In Santa Barbara, rates increased by 55% between 2004 and 2011.
- Iowa: AFSCME secured the first pay raise in the history of the program and a new referral registry to connect providers and clients, increasing communication.
- Maryland: AFSCME won pay increases of 40 percent in seven years after providers went 19 years without an increase.
- Across the country: In December 2011, AFSCME helped win federal overtime and minimum wage protections for all homecare workers, which had previously been denied to us for almost 75 years. Read more about our national victories.
National commitment
Laura Reyes, AFSCME’s Secretary-Treasurer and the #2 ranking official in the national union, counts herself as one of us.
AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Laura Reyes shares her personal story of organizing as a homecare provider.
After the premature birth of Laura’s first son, she was told he would not be able to walk or talk and became a homecare provider to take care of her son. Today, Laura’s son can not only walk, and talk, but is currently enrolled in college, a true testament to the Reyes family’s resilience but also the incredibly vital service homecare providers offer their clients. Read Laura’s thoughts on Vermont’s homecare providers in AFSCME WORKS Magazine.
“I think it says a lot about AFSCME that the number two position nationally comes from homecare. Laura knows what we need to provide for our clients and can use the resources of AFSCME to benefit Vermont homecare providers and most importantly, our clients.”
– Janelle Blake, Essex Junction.
