In March, ResCare Home Health workers united in our union kicked off our campaign for our second union contract.  

We were ready to get to work, and then the pandemic hit Illinois. The reality of the virus slowed us down some, but we kept applying pressure on state lawmakers about the importance of investing in the state’s home care workforce and that paid off. The General Assembly and Governor Pritzker included funding for raises for agency home care workers that serve seniors through the Community Care Program. 

Althought ResCare/Always Caring does not receive funding from the state of Illinois to provide home care services, the fact that we are able to raise standards like this puts pressure on companies like ResCare to also lift pay. And that’s exactly what happened. ResCare realized that in order to recruit and retain workers, they had to invest in the workforce. 

We are happy to share that we reached an agreement with ResCare to provide increases now. Effective August 1, the following raises have been implemented:

Job Title	New Hire Rate Effective 8/1/20	Current Bargaining Unit Employees Effective 8/1/20
DSP (caregiver)	$11.50/hr.	$1.50/hr raise
CNA (caregiver)	$12/hr.	$1.50/hr. raise
LPN	$24/hr.	$2.00/hr. raise

We are very excited about these new raises we won, but we aren’t done yet as contract bargaining continues!

Congratulations to every ResCare Home Health worker on this new raise and stay tuned for more updates from the negotiations table.