Home-Care Worker Pay Mired in Dispute

A year ago, home-care workers like Beatriz Hernandez were savoring a historic union election win that offered the hope of a better life.

Now, an obscure, back-room fight between state and county officials has left them struggling to survive on low incomes.

Hernandez earns $6.25 per hour taking care of elderly and disabled people in their homes for the county. She has no health insurance nor vacation time. Her low wages would be illegal if she worked for a private company contracting with the county under the living wage law passed by the Board of Supervisors last year.

But because Hernandez and her 72,000 fellow home-care workers are government employees, their livelihood is being held up in a standoff between Sacramento and Los Angeles County over just how much each side should contribute to a pay hike.

The plight of the workers has led to demonstrations, sit-ins and the intercession of Cardinal Roger M. Mahony.

After the Los Angeles workers joined the powerful Service Employees International Union last year in the largest unionization nationally in decades, labor lobbyists pushed hard for health insurance and a pay raise. Gov. Gray Davis responded, offering a $1.25-an-hour boost and health insurance--but only if counties picked up 35% of the tab.

It would cost Los Angeles County $18 million, and county officials say they don’t have that much money. They contend that the county should fund 20% of the raises, noting that the state provided 80% of the home-care workers’ income last year.

There are indications the dispute could be resolved Tuesday when supervisors make final changes to their annual budget.

County officials said that a way might be found to offer a modest pay boost to Hernandez and her colleagues, something all the supervisors say is warranted.

Until then, the 43-year-old Hernandez is among those workers who are battling to stay afloat. She is a single mother who shares a small one-bedroom apartment in Hollywood with her sister and 14-year-old daughter, Adel.

A 19-year-old son, Aldo, lives with a neighbor next door, because Hernandez can’t afford to care for him. Her 26-year-old son, Abraham, lives in Harbor City with his wife and son, but he doesn’t earn enough to help her financially.

So, Hernandez works 50 or 60 hours a week to pay their monthly rent of $500, plus utility bills, groceries and bus passes. Her sister helps support them when she can. But the family doesn’t earn enough to buy health insurance, and Hernandez can’t afford a doctor. Fortunately, she said, “God helps me not to get sick.”

Recently, Hernandez started teaching motivational and wellness classes as part of a Planned Parenthood program geared toward Latinas, which adds as much as $200 a month to her income.

But the nights before a class, Hernandez is often writing her lesson until 2 a.m., allowing her just a few hours of sleep before her day as a home-care worker begins.

Her clients, many of whom are elderly folks and have little themselves, give her old clothing and occasionally money for food.

Although times are tough, Hernandez said her life is easier than it was when she became a home health care worker in 1987. Back then, the job paid $3.25 an hour, enough for one room in Compton, which she shared with her three children. They cooked on a hot plate and used a neighbor’s bathroom.

Over the years, Hernandez’s salary has increased with the minimum wage, allowing her to move into her Hollywood apartment, which is a shorter bus ride to her clients than Compton.

On weekdays, she wakes at 5:30 a.m. to help her daughter off to school. By 6:45 a.m. she’s on the bus to downtown Los Angeles where three of her five clients live in an apartment complex for seniors called Angeles Plaza.

Her “customers” are housebound people with terminal illness or debilitating emotional problems who consider the 43-year-old single mother their main connection to the world outside.

Most have no family or friends. They call Hernandez to calm their nerves after a bad dream or a lonely night. She does their grocery shopping, cleans their apartments, takes them to the doctor and keeps them company when no one else will.

“They call and say ‘I need you,’ ” she said. “And if I can, I go.”

One longtime client, Gertrude Lindsey, 82, said Hernandez is like a close friend who does things that are impossible for her to do alone. Lindsey is blind and uses an oxygen tank to breathe. With Hernandez, she travels by cab to doctors’ appointments and to the neighborhood market.

Hernandez is proud of the important role she plays in these lives, but said home health care workers need better pay for being indispensable.

“It’s too much work, too much responsibility and too little money,” she said.

Workers like Hernandez are employed by a publicly funded group called the Personal Assistance Services Council, but their pay is determined by the state and counties.

Other counties have accepted the distribution formula sought by Davis, union officials said.

But Los Angeles County supervisors say that, because the workers effectively labor for the state by keeping people out of nursing homes, Sacramento should foot most of the bill.

“The state is the one that receives the benefits from this program,” said Miguel Santana, a spokesman for Supervisor Gloria Molina.

“It’s a budget-busting trend that we’re being asked to absorb,” Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said.

Yaroslavsky, who agrees that it is unfair for Hernandez and her colleagues to receive such low pay, still believes Los Angeles must be treated differently than other counties.

“We’re not saying we want to be treated special. We are special,” Yaroslavsky said. “We’re different.”

Tyrone Freeman, general manager of SEIU Local 434B, Hernandez’s union, says that is ridiculous.

“Everybody’s at the table” elsewhere in the state, he said Friday afternoon. “L.A. does not want to put in its fair share.”

More than 40 in-home workers, their patients and religious leaders have been arrested during sit-ins at the county Hall of Administration. Union members are in the midst of 24-hour vigils at the building. Mahony, who is head of the nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, has urged the board to get the pay raises approved soon.

Meanwhile, Hernandez hopes to someday earn $7.50 an hour plus benefits so she can buy a car, clothes for Adel and “get more rest.” Her teenage daughter has started working part time as a store clerk, so this year she will buy her own bus pass and maybe save up for school clothes.

Despite the low wage, Hernandez said she has stayed in the job because she likes it.

“These people really need love and attention,” she said. “They don’t have any family. They don’t have anything.”