Pennies for Direct Care Workers |
MetroWest Daily News I am going to give my employees a 10-cents-an-hour raise. But that's only if they already make over $12 an hour. If, like most of my employees, they earn less than $12 per hour, I am going to give them 15 cents per hour raise. What do you think of me? Maybe if I told you that these are extraordinarily dedicated workers who care for people with autism, developmental disabilities, psychiatric disabilities, blindness, depression, or cerebral palsy you'd think something different. Maybe if I told you about the enormous challenges they face everyday: the most serious of illness and/or disability, investigations, assaults, budgets that buy less every year, pressure to maintain safe and clean homes without the staff and resources to do it, and growing regulation and paperwork. And sometimes, more often now that success has allowed folks to age, they deal with the death of those they grew to love; maybe then, you'd think something else about me. On June 30, Governor Romney vetoed and reduced by half a $20 million, legislatively-approved, budget item that would have provided direct care human service workers very modest raises of 21 to 31 cents per hour. I have begun to call and plead with my many legislative friends to override this most unfortunate veto. Time for action runs out in days. Please understand that it would take a 3.6 percent adjustment just to keep pace with the cost of living, and that would cost $93 million. That would allow the same level of human services to continue one year to the next. But today we ask for just $20 million. $20 million will provide 21 cents per hour, instead the $10 million, which will only provide 10 cents per hour. I am the 25-year president and CEO of Advocates, one of the largest and most effective human service organizations in this state. Yet my organization and hundreds like it have not received a cost of living adjustment to their contracts since 1988. (That's not a typo.) I am responsible for what I pay my staff, yet I, along with scores of other human service leaders have miserably and shamefully failed to convince our government that these workers deserve a living wage. I take responsibility for my humiliating inability to make the case. I ask for your help. I beg the help of
anyone, who is unsettled by the utterly devaluing wages we pay those
who care for those we love so
much. Please
let your elected
leaders know that you believe that direct care workers
deserve more; much more, but at least let's get them 21 cents an
hour this year.
Democracies work best when people speak their mind. I really
can't believe that this
current monetary valuation of direct care work is what
we in this democracy want. Please help begin change today. |