Harrisburg, PA – While most Pennsylvanians view the onset of the holiday season as a time to focus on our responsibilities to others, one of Pennsylvania’s largest for-profit home care agencies – Bayada Nurses – is marking the holidays by pursing a legal appeal aimed at taking away home care workers’ right to be paid a minimum wage and overtime pay. Today, dozens of home care consumers and their family members joined with the home caregivers who support them to expose Bayada’s actions.
On the morning of December 1st, Bayada went to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to ask the state to end home care agencies’ obligations to homecare workers under the Minimum Wage Act. Caregivers, their clients and their families condemned Bayada’s efforts at a noon press conference, stressing that home care attendants need more, not less, if they are to support tens of thousands of seniors and people with disabilities in their homes.
“Bayada has given me great opportunities to work one on one with patient care, but their decision on minimum wage for home care aides is a big disappointment,” said Eric Rogers, a Bayada home care attendant who lives and works in Western Pennsylvania.
“I have heard that Bayada didn’t always pay workers what the law said they had to, and when those workers took them to court, Bayada settled with them for over $2 million,” continued Eric. “Bayada should work to make things better. Health insurance is already too expensive for us to afford, and it will be disappointing to see our wages possibly go down because Bayada wants to consider us domestic servants instead of health care workers.”
Bayada attempted to escape Pennsylvania’s minimum wage law in 2008, when it brought a case to the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court. The Court ruled that in Pennsylvania, homecare agencies owe their workers minimum wage, overtime, and other protections. Bayada appealed that decision today in the Supreme Court.
Speaking out in support of better wages and benefits for home care attendants – and a reliable system for home care consumers – were Lance Haver and his adopted son Daren Dieter. Lance is the Consumer Affairs Director of the City of Philadelphia, and Daren, who lives with a disability, relies on home care to remain independent and with his family.
“Without home care my son would need to be in a nursing home,” said Lance. “Consumers in Philadelphia and their families lose attendants every day because they need better wages and benefits to do their absolutely vital jobs. Bayada treads on dangerous ground if they want to weaken a system our families need statewide.”
Bayada’s attempt to strip homecare workers of their rights is opposed by Pennsylvania AARP, the PA AFL-CIO, and SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, who filed a joint amicus brief in the case. The brief drew on their years of experience as advocates, as well as well-established research that argued that low wages lead to high turnover in home care now, and that our system needs a stronger workforce for a growing elderly and disabled population:
[Home care attendant] turnover, attributable in large part to the low wages, has been estimated at 40-100% per year by agencies interviewed for a recent news article and at 12-60% by the United States Department for Health and Human Services. High turnover is expensive, costing approximately $3,362 each time a worker needs to be replaced. It also tends to diminish the quality and continuity of patient care.
Coverage of agency home care workers under the Minimum Wage Act stabilizes and strengthens the labor pool that delivers critical services to older persons and persons with disabilities. This protection is crucial in light of the well-documented shortage of home care workers in Pennsylvania and throughout the country – a shortage that is predicted to become even more acute as the population ages. Low-wage home care workers are the very ones the PMWA is intended to cover and protect.
"I was able to be a wife and mother, and to work for disability rights, because of the support given to me by home care attendants," said agency home care consumer Vini Portzline of Lower Paxton Township, PA. "Bayada is pushing today to make the home care system weaker. And that could leave thousands of people like me unable to live the independent lives we all deserve."
"I love working with Vini and helping her live independently. However, home care attendants don't get paid what they deserve, and most of us don't have health care benefits," said Katrina Heycock, Vini's longtime home care attendant. "I'm shocked that Bayada would ask Pennsylvania to give agencies permission to pay us less than minimum wage. We need the same wages and benefits that all people do to take care of ourselves, our consumers, and our families."