Service Union Claims Victory : L.A. County to Bargain Home-Care Pact

The Service Employees International Union said Saturday that it had achieved “a major victory” in its efforts to secure a collective bargaining agreement with Los Angeles County covering 40,000 low-paid home health-care workers.

Kirk Adams, the chief union organizer in the home care campaign, said county officials had agreed to begin negotiations over improved wages and benefits for the workers. He also said the union will negotiate “a service contract with the county that provides for training workers and setting up a job referral placement system.”

Adams disclosed the tentative, innovative settlement with the county in an interview and then announced it at a rally at Los Angeles Trade Technical College where the workers’ efforts to improve their lot in life was praised by Democratic presidential candidate Jesse Jackson.

Details to Iron Out

The major details of the settlement reached late Friday still have to be ironed out, said Adams and Donald R. Deise, senior assistant administrative officer for Los Angeles County. But the tentative agreement enables the union and the county to sidestep a thorny question that had been dividing them: whether the home-care workers are county employees.

The workers, the overwhelming majority of whom are middle-aged minority women, are paid $3.72 an hour, and they receive no benefits. They take care of elderly and disabled people who have been certified as eligible by the county Department of Public Social Services.

The workers typically labor about 28 hours a week, though some work 40 hours and split time between two clients. They bathe and clothe the blind and infirm, cook meals, buy groceries, dispense medicine, take their clients to the doctor and perform a myriad of other tasks.

Aided by ministers in South-Central and southeastern Los Angeles and employing grass-roots techniques, the union has obtained authorization cards to represent 15,000 workers, all of whom work at different sites.

County officials, noting that clients have the right to hire and fire workers, have taken the position that workers are the individual employees of each client, not the county.

Union’s Argument

The union has countered by pointing out that the county sets wages, keep employment records, notifies the state to pay the workers and can reduce the worker’s hours by lowering the number of hours of assistance an individual client is eligible to receive.

The union sued the county in Los Angeles Superior Court asking for a declaratory judgment that the county is the workers’ employer, a critical issue because it would be impossible for the union to negotiate 40,000 separate contracts if the county’s position were sustained.

A trial on the issue was scheduled to start Monday, but it has been postponed indefinitely while negotiations for a formal agreement proceed.

Adams and Deise said they thought a negotiated settlement was preferable to a lengthy court fight.

“I think this is a major victory,” Adams said. “The process we’re starting deals with the key issues--improving wages and working conditions and improving the home-care system for the clients.”

‘Form of Recognition’

“This is obviously a form of recognition for the union,” though not the form of recognition that would come through a recognition election, Adams said.

“We hope this is a cooperative way to settle this so we can both get what we want,” Deise said. Asked if the county, in essence, would be treating the union as if it were a sub-contractor providing services, he responded, “That’s what we’re discussing.”

Deise said any contract that county negotiators reach with the union will have to be approved by the Board of Supervisors, workers and state officials, who regulate the in-home supportive services program, one of the fastest-growing health-care programs in the state.

The program serves 52,000 people in Los Angeles County and for the fiscal year ending June 30 has a budget of $207.3 million. About 61% of that comes from the federal government, 34% from the state and the remaining 5% from the county.