Labor Pool: Pro-Labor, Pro-Client?
Agencies, union agree on the need for more state funding, but that's all
Last week, members of the Service Employees International Union Local 509 and their supporters held what they called a "Rally for Quality Care" in a conference room at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Worcester.
Participants in the low-key event talked about how a union-supported state bill, H.B. 1863, would help people with disabilities and mental illnesses who get services from private, state-funded agencies - by raising the pay of the people who work there by up to $2 an hour if they take part in certain professional training. The union says that would reduce staff turnover, making life easier for the people the agencies serve.
"The high turnover rate definitely hurts the client," said Lewis Bell, who was once a client at Community Healthlink in Worcester and has been a residential counselor there for the past seven years. "You lose a sense of security when you have a counselor for a year or two and then he changes, you get another one."
Sympathy Card
Any time unions argue for a policy change by talking about the welfare of the people they serve, it's bound to attract suspicion. And in this case, depending on your perspective, that suspicion might be justified.
Press Local 509 President Michael Grunko a little, and he acknowledges that the legislative change would not just help disabled people get better continuity of care, or even just help low-paid caregivers get better pay. It would also help get new members into his union.
But Grunko, like the workers and disability advocates who spoke at the rally, argues that growing the union is actually a key to the long-term welfare of both service workers and the people they serve.
According to union spokesman Cliff Cohn, the types of agencies covered by the bill, including Community Healthlink, employ 35,000 to 40,000 people, but only around 10 percent of them are in a union. The bill's language says a provider must have "a legally binding written commitment with its employees or their representatives" to raise wages for people who get the required training.
According to Grunko, that doesn't mean nonunion agencies couldn't take advantage of the wage hike, but he thinks that, without the pressure of collective bargaining, they'd be unlikely to sign that sort of contract. And assuming they didn't, nonunion employees might end up watching their counterparts at union agencies get a $2 pay hike while they get nothing, something that could make the prospect of unionizing a lot more attractive.
"The idea is to build the labor movement," Grunko said.
But Grunko also argues that building the labor movement is all about changes that will ultimately benefit agency clients. Giving more power to the people who work with clients every day is more likely to advance their interests than letting far-removed managers call the shots, as is often the case today, he said.
"Frankly, the existing system has not succeeded," Grunko said.
The Massachusetts Council of Human Service Providers, which represents many of the state-funded private agencies, would beg to differ on that. President Michael D. Weekes argues that the problem with the union bill is that it "doesn't go far enough." The provider's council supports other measures to increase overall state funding for the agencies.
To Bell, though, simply providing more money with no earmarks for raises would give too much leeway to managers.
"Without it being mandated, a CEO or whoever can pretty much do whatever they want to do with that money," he said.
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