Washington Voters Approve Home Care Workers Initiative

Voters in Washington state have passed Initiative 775, which will establish minimum standards for home care workers who care for the elderly and people with disabilities and will allow those workers to unionize, the AP/Spokane Spokesman-Review reports. The initiative will create a nine-member Home Care Quality Authority, which will set minimum qualifications, provide training, recruit workers and establish a "referral list" of qualified home care workers. The state regulation will also grant home care workers the right to unionize, allowing them to bargain with the HCQA for better wages and benefits. The state currently pays independent home care workers $7.68 per hour. The AP/Spokesman-Review reports that the initiative will cost the state $3.6 million in 2002 and $6.8 million for the 2003-2005 budget cycle to establish the HCQA and register, recruit and train workers. If the workers successfully unionize and demand better wages, "the initiative would cost a lot more," the AP/Spokesman-Review reports. The state Senate Ways and Means Committee estimates that each additional dollar home care workers make would cost the state $38 million per year. A home care worker pay increase would have to be approved by the state Legislature. Advocates for the disabled said that unionization could give workers "too much power" and their clients "not enough." They are concerned that unionization will leave the elderly and people with disabilities "without care or stuck with caregivers they don't like," even though the initiative bans strikes and "guarantees" employers the right to "hire and fire" their workers. Gov. Gary Locke (D) supported the initiative, after its sponsors allayed his concerns that the initiative "could make the state more vulnerable to lawsuits" (Cook, AP/Spokane Spokesman-Review, 11/7).