Re: JOHN P WE NEED YOU CALL Senator Harkin's Office NOW and urge him to suppo...

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From: Bruce Darling Please CALL Senator Harkin's Office NOW to and urge him to support people with disabilities and home care workers More Info Tell the Senator to support Senator Johanns' amendment ! TAKE ACTION NOW! CALL Senator Harkin at (202) 224-3254. Tell the Senator's staff: Senator Harkin has always been a friend to the disability community. So I am calling to support Senator Johanns' amendment in the Appropriations Committee to the Department of Labor appropriation that would prevent the Department of Labor from finalizing, implementing or enforcing changes to the Companionship Exemption that would hurt people with disabilities and the workers who provide us with services and supports to live independently in the community! Without this amendment there will be devastating effects in New York, where we have no one on the Appropriations Committee to represent us. Please urge the Senator to support this amendment. The Department of Labor (DOL) has proposed changes in federal labor rules that will hurt people with disabilities and attendants who support our independence. These changes will most seriously impact people who have the most significant disabilities and rely on Medicaid services to live in the community and their attendants. In short, the proposed changes will: - Force seniors and people with disabilities into institutions; - Cut the take-home pay of attendants; - Reduce the attendant workforce; - Force people with disabilities to cut the hours of trusted attendants and bring strangers into their homes; and - Devastate consumer directed attendant programs. Many national disability organizations -- including ADAPT, the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL), and the National Council on Disability (NCD) -- have raised concerns about these proposed changes and urged the Department of Labor to work with the disability community to resolve them. Instead of acknowledging the issue and working with the Disability Community to resolve it, the Department of Labor has continued to push ahead with these changes. (You can learn more about this issue at www.DOLoffMYbody.org) TODAY, Senator Johanns will be submitting an amendment to the Department of Labor's appropriation that prevents DOL from finalizing, implementing or enforcing these changes until concerns about the proposed rules have been addressed. SO PLEASE TAKE ACTION, call Senator Harkin at (202) 224-3254 and tell the staff: Senator Harkin has always been a friend to the disability community. So I am calling to support Senator Johanns' amendment in the Appropriations Committee to the Department of Labor appropriation that would prevent the Department of Labor from finalizing, implementing or enforcing changes to the Companionship Exemption that would hurt people with disabilities and the workers who provide us with services and supports to live independently in the community! Without this amendment there will be devastating effects in New York, where we have no one on the Appropriations Committee to represent us. Please urge the Senator to support this amendment. AFTER YOU CALL... Share this alert with family and friends and urge them to call as well. Then email us back at [email protected] and share how your call went. Thank you! ____________________________________________________________ _Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it._ (http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=NZINTISP0512T4GOUT2) __._,_.___ NOTE: persons forwarding CDR Xchange mail please leave this footer attached: CALIFORNIANS FOR DISABILITY RIGHTS, INC. To Improve the Quality of Life for All Persons with any Disability Through Education and Training — By Working to Remove Barriers Through Advocacy and Change in Public Policy Visit the CDR Web at: www.disabilityrights-cdr.org JOIN CDR - http://disabilityrights-cdr.org/aboutcdr/membership.html CDR is wholly supported through member dues and donations ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Fair Use Notice In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ _Linda L R Roberts_ (https://www.facebook.com/lindalr.roberts) Disagree with this. The answer is NOT to continue the exploitation. The answer is to put more money into these programs. _9 hours ago_ (https://www.facebook.com/groups/IHSS.ConsumersUnion/permalink/483831198361611/?comment_id=484116424999755&offset=0&total_comments=6) · _Like_ (https://www.facebook.com/groups/IHSS.ConsumersUnion/#) (https://www.facebook.com/nancybk) (https://www.facebook.com/groups/IHSS.ConsumersUnion/#) _Nancy Becker Kennedy_ (https://www.facebook.com/nancybk) I respect you enormously, Linda but We Don't Live in Nirvana. We live in a state where were about to get our IHSS cut 4.4% which is the others shoe dropping from the 8% that was cut last year and the 20% cut to IHSS that the governor tried to cut but was stopped by the courts. The IHSS workers and consumers will get less money to live on this month and would get far less money if the governor had his way. If you read the letter which I will repost here from the National Association of Medicaid directors none of the cash-strapped states could afford this overtime pay. They are currently slashing Medicaid but it just and throwing seniors and people with disabilities into budget junk health plans that don't even have their specialties to cut money. Publicly funded IHSS services are not open-ended. They are finite and determined by the revenues that the state collects that year. Instead of paying overtime, the governor's administration announced in an Olmstead meeting that they will cap IHSS provider hours to 160 hours per consumer to avoid paying overtime. Trailer bill language was already prepared to that effect. If the D.O. L. really wanted to make this a better job for providers it would provide robust experienced backup services for IHSS consumers so their lives are not thrown up in the air when their providers are sick, that way IHSS workers could have paid sick leave and paid vacations like they have in New York. By cynically asking for overtime pay which they know in state-funded Medicaid IHSS programs can not pay, all it does is give the unions two or three union dues out of a house were they used to get one, as families and people have to hire one and two more providers. If the DOL instead made the job better with quality backup services, sick pay, and vacation pay this would cost a fraction of overtime pay, and would have a real chance of being provided. 70% of California providers are family providers who will see their family income radically cut from 280 hours 160 hours. I was on a phone call with Tony Anderson of the ARC of California, saying that the family providers are greying and they are not professional providers who want to go out and get two and three jobs to supplement the cut they will receive an hours taking care of their family member. And if they have to leave the house to get that income than they will not be able to take care of their disabled family member. There were people on that call who are severely disabled with their providers with relationships that would be severed in the providers hours were cut almost in half. We live in the real world and this will be the real fallout of the passage of his D.O.l laws as written, with no consultation to the disability community or in-depth talk with the possible ramifications to their own rank-and-file providers, which is why we must stop these rules and insist that rank-and-file providers and the disability community he consulted to work out a compromise. The ADAPT (American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today) / NCIL (National Council on Independent Living) compromise called for an elimination of the companionship exemption in privately funded third-party agencies while leaving government-funded Medicaid IHSS out of it. This is why we need to call and get our friends to call Senator Harkin now and tell him not to hurt people with disabilities and home care providers by approving the D.O l Department of Labor rules as they are written now it will really hurt those of us on Medicaid publicly funded IHSS. And that instead they should wait for a compromise that is reach by consulting with all parties and is harmless to all. _7 hours ago_ (https://www.facebook.com/groups/IHSS.ConsumersUnion/permalink/483831198361611/?comment_id=484144901663574&offset=0&total_comments=6) · _Edited_ (https://www.facebook.com/groups/IHSS.ConsumersUnion/#) · _Unlike_ (https://www.facebook.com/groups/IHSS.ConsumersUnion/#) · _3_ (https://www.facebook.com/browse/likes?id=484144901663574) (https://www.facebook.com/paulas.jafra) (https://www.facebook.com/groups/IHSS.ConsumersUnion/#) _Paula Herman_ (https://www.facebook.com/paulas.jafra) Bump _6 hours ago_ (https://www.facebook.com/groups/IHSS.ConsumersUnion/permalink/483831198361611/?comment_id=484174611660603&offset=0&total_comments=6) · _Like_ (https://www.facebook.com/groups/IHSS.ConsumersUnion/#) (https://www.facebook.com/philipericbennett) (https://www.facebook.com/groups/IHSS.ConsumersUnion/#) _Philip Bennett_ (https://www.facebook.com/philipericbennett) Hello, Linda L R Roberts. I have been a home care worker for close to 37 years. I'm touched that you want to end my "exploitation" by putting more money into the system. My question is: where will the money come from? From the federal government which is sixteen trillion dollars in debt? From the states which are struggling also and, like the home care agencies, are under no obligation to pay overtime (outside of emergencies) as long as they can split up workers' hours? Your Facebook page indicates that you are in the business of providing legal services. So I don't have to explain the Fair Labor Standards Act to you. If the money's not there to pay at overtime rate after the fortieth hour, our hours will be reduced. How does that help us? Perhaps you think we're being exploited because we work long hours. Yes, often we do, and I'm very thankful for that because, at our low hourly wage, that's how we can support ourselves. I always prefer a case with many hours and the vast majority of my fellow home care workers feel the same. You see, Linda, it's not like we're constantly on our feet lifting people in and out of bed every minute of the day. Once we perform the important tasks of the job as well as the not so important chores which help the person we assist have a comfortable and productive life and, as long as we're ready to stop what we're doing whenever we're asked by our consumer, we can relax with a book, with a computer (which I'm doing now while on the job), watch TV, or whatever. Unless we're working a case that requires constant attention or with a very demanding and emotionally taxing consumer, this is a dream job! So, in light of the fact that, without the millions or even billions of dollars required to pay this pie-in-the-sky overtime, we workers, as well as the people we assist, will be royally screwed, please explain why you disagree with my petition. Perhaps, instead of pie-in-the-sky, you can work reviving the Community Choice Act or increase our hourly wage so we're on par with nursing home workers or assure that all home care workers get extra vacation and sick pay. I look forward to your response, _Linda L R Roberts_ (https://www.facebook.com/lindalr.roberts) . _4 hours ago_ (https://www.facebook.com/groups/IHSS.ConsumersUnion/permalink/483831198361611/?comment_id=484200498324681&offset=0&total_comments=6) · _Unlike_ (https://www.facebook.com/groups/IHSS.ConsumersUnion/#) · _3_ (https://www.facebook.com/browse/likes?id=484200498324681) Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional _Change settings via the Web_ (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CDR-MembersXchange/join;_ylc=X3oDMTJmbjFvb29pBF9TAzk3NDc2NTkwBGdycElkAzI5MDEwOTQEZ3Jwc3BJZ AMxNzA1OTU5ODQyBHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA3N0bmdzBHN0aW1lAzEzNzM1NzAyOTA-) (Yahoo! 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