In 19^th Month of Bargaining, Training and Health Insurance Restored For Thousands of Caregivers

CHICAGO-Facing arbitration, the Bruce Rauner administration on Tuesday capitulated and restored health insurance and training for state child care workers and home healthcare personal assistants who care for more than 100,000 children and people with disabilities.

SEIU Healthcare Illinois has been at the bargaining table for 19 months without a collective bargaining agreement for more than 50,000 child care and home healthcare workers and Rauner has attempted to strip these workers of training and health insurance, as well as impose a freeze to wages already at or near the poverty level.

The Rauner administration illegally stopped making payments into the workers’ healthcare and training funds on July 1, 2015. SEIU Healthcare obtained a restraining order last fall restoring the health insurance contributions, but the vital training programs had been suspended since last year.

The Illinois Labor Relations Board last month issued an unfair labor complaint alleging that the administration wrongly implemented policies capping overtime hours for caregivers in the Home Services Program who provide for people with disabilities.

The Health Fund provides healthcare to thousands of the 50,000 child care and home healthcare workers who care for roughly 30,000 people with disabilities, as well as more than 70,000 children of working parents. The Training Fund has trained more than 20,000 home care and child care providers, who garnered critical skills that improve the quality of care to the people they serve.

The union filed a grievance over the state’s illegal actions and, in the face of probable defeat in arbitration scheduled in mid-September, the Rauner administration opted to settle the case Tuesday.

SEIU Healthcare Illinois Vice President Terri Harkin, who has been part of the bargaining talks with the Rauner administration, said:

“Our workforce, a vast majority of whom are women and people of color, has been under constant attack by Bruce Rauner in his attempt to dismantle the social safety net that has been stitched with care in bipartisan fashion over the years.

“Denying our members training and health insurance was a particularly unconscionable act that not only harmed our workforce, but also the children and people with disabilities for whom they care.

“Our workers deserve a fair contract and to be treated with respect and dignity and certainly not be subjected to illegal insults that put their livelihoods at risk. Bruce Rauner has an opportunity in this moment to step back from his radical position and, after 19 brutal months, enter a fair collective bargaining agreement with our workforce.”

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