Pay for New York City Home Health Aides Should Be Raised, Columnist Says

Home health care workers do "important work" but are among the "most poorly paid and poorly treated" employees in the health care industry, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert writes. In order to address issues such as low pay and lack of health insurance, more than 15,000 home health care workers in New York City have voted to join the Service Employees International Union 1199. However, contract negotiations with the home health service agencies that employ the workers have proven "extremely difficult." Some 3,500 home health care workers at Premier Home Care Services have said that they will strike if no agreement is reached by Sept. 18. Premier President Arthur Schwabe said, "I want wage and benefit increases for my people," but he added that the government would need to offer more money or the union would have to "take the money that is already available and divide it among many more workers." Herbert writes, however, "Neither of those options is likely." Most home health care workers "receive no health care, no sick pay, and get no vacations" as compensation for their work, Herbert writes, concluding that "now would be a good time to stop the[ir] utter exploitation" (Herbert, New York Times, 9/12).