Bargaining up to $15

Big victory for home workers organized by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in Massachusetts, who just successfully bargained a new contract that will bring their wages up to $15 an hour by 2018. As an article in the Boston Globe points out, home care workers joined the national Fight for $15 about a year ago, forming a political coalition with other low-wage workers.

Minnesota home care workers have also run a recent victory, and in California, a new consolidation of home care and nursing home workers from three separate locals promises bargaining clout. These current events confirm a point that economist Candace Howes makes in “Home Care: The Fastest Growing Low-Wage Industry“, in the May 2015 New Labor Forum: Unionization is the most direct path to improvement for both workers and consumers in this sector.