Orange County provider Diana Rice marches with other UDW members and supporters at a rally outside a Board of Supervisors meeting on March 27, 2018.
From Butte to Orange County, providers are packing Board of Supervisor meetings with a sea of UDW green and demanding that counties #SupportCaregivers with a pay raise that will show us respect—and help pay our bills.
UDW caregivers in Tuolumne County recently won a new contract with better wages and benefits.
“If it wasn’t for our union, we wouldn’t have gotten this,” said UDW caregiver Susan Lipscomb, who served as a member of the bargaining team. “And it opens the door for next negotiations to be positive negotiations.”
But other counties have not been willing to give providers a much-needed raise, like in Orange County where negotiations have stalled after a year and a half of being at the bargaining table.
“To have a pay raise would mean we could afford to get my son the therapy and treatment he needs and improve his quality of life overall,” said Diana Rice, an IHSS provider in Orange County.
As of the first of the year, the minimum wage in California has increased from $10 to $10.50 an hour. This increase is the first of many as the state’s minimum wage gradually goes up to $15 an hour. Read more here.
UDW caregivers in 14 counties including Alpine, Butte, Kern, Madera, Merced, Mono, Nevada, Orange, Plumas, San Diego, Sierra, Stanislaus, Sutter, and Tuolumne counties will see an improvement in our IHSS pay as a result of the new, higher minimum wage.
The minimum wage increase is no coincidence. UDW caregivers worked with other low wage workers to convince elected leaders to raise the wage, and lift California families out of poverty. And we won!
The minimum wage is scheduled to reach $15 by 2022, and in addition, the plan includes paid sick days for IHSS providers for the first time in history starting in 2018.
We will continue to celebrate this victory for working families, but we will not be complacent. UDW caregivers must continue to fight for more than minimum wage, because in-home care should not be a minimum wage job. The work we do is worth far more. That’s why UDW caregivers went All In for Care in 2016. We recommitted ourselves to the fight for wage and benefit improvements in UDW counties throughout the state, which you can read about here.
Click here to contact your local UDW office and find out how you too can go All In for Care.
Remember, no one IHSS provider can do it alone! Click here to join our work to increase IHSS provider pay in your county by becoming a member of UDW today.
