But I Take Care of A Family Member...
How Does This Union Have Anything to Do With Me ?

By joining together we're getting the state and the county to improve the IHSS program for providers and for recipients. By unionizing, we aren't just helping ourselves as workers, we're helping the people we work for. Consider some of these issues:

• Some IHSS workers say, "But I really don't need higher wages. After all, I'm caring for a member of my family..." But think of how the low wages and no benefits affect the people you work for. How will they find someone to work for them when you are unable to?  What if you need to leave town for a few weeks? What happens when we get sick and need someone to come in as a respite worker?  What if we need take another job, to bring in more money for the family?  The answer to all these questions is that, right now, there really isn't a solution: It is very hard to find someone outside the family to help, because few people are willing to work for such low wages.
  
  
• Faced with that fact, families have no options but to provide the care themselves - without even being able to take a break from time to time. We're changing that by joining together.
  
  
• We also need to think of the thousands of home care consumers in the county who aren't blessed with having family members nearby who can provide the care. Because of the low wages, many people go for weeks or months without care, because they can't find anyone willing to take the job.
  
  
• All of us know what a sign of disrespect it is to seniors and people with disabilities for the state and county to pay the lowest wage possible for their care. What is that saying about the value being placed on people?
  
  
• As a union, we're now better able to address the need for the county and state to provide consumers with the hours of service they really need.
  
  
• We are fighting to change the way home care workers and consumers are sometimes treated by the IHSS program. Consumers and providers should be treated with dignity and respect. No one should have to be made to feel like they are begging when they ask for their rights in the IHSS program.
  
  
• Higher wages for home care workers means more income for your family, which is important to the wellbeing of the family member you care for.
  
  
• Can we improve the IHSS program by unionizing?  Sure we can. Now that we are unionized, each of us is still able to deal with our families' IHSS needs the way we have been in the past, but we will also be able to speak with the strength of a unified voice. For more than half of the state's 300,000 IHSS providers, joining the union this has already resulted in important program improvement for consumers and providers.