Fwd: Disability Rights and the Labor Movement - Labor Day 2013

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____________________________________ From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: 9/2/2013 12:38:10 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time Subj: Disability Rights and the Labor Movement - Labor Day 2013 Advocates: With the DOL rules anticipated to be released today or early next week, I thought this article written by me and Marsha Katz 10 years ago, highlights the fact that the tensions that exist between the disability community and the labor movement are not new and still exist. Tom Perez had an opportunity to facilitate a dialogue on these passionately held positions but instead held a for show "listening session", knowing he and DOL weren't listening nor had any intention of bringing the stakeholders together BEFORE the rules became final. I personally have lost all respect for a man who wouldn't be a straight shooter to disability rights activists. We all should read the final rules and ACT accordingly. DON'T MOURN...ORGANIZE! Onward to Nirvana Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T ____________________________________ From: Bob Kafka <[email protected]> Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2013 12:18:11 -0700 (PDT) To: [email protected]<[email protected]> ReplyTo: Bob Kafka <[email protected]> Subject: Disability Rights and the Labor Movement - Labor Day 2013 Disability Rights and Worker Rights: A Discussion of Issues by Bob Kafka and Marsha Katz November 14, 2003 (updated October 8, 2008) The disability rights movement frequently uses civil and human rights analogies to bolster our argument that people with disabilities are battling power structures similar to those that have historically blocked the equal participation of women, people of color, and gays/lesbians. One topic that has been ignored in most of the country is the symbiotic relationship between the worker rights/union movement and the disability community's struggle to fight unnecessary institutionalization and live in the community. The traditional “progressive” movement has ignored this and many other issues critical to the integration of people with disabilities into our communities. Few disability organizations, and fewer people with disabilities, belong to, interact with, or have any understanding of the labor movement and its history. Many disabled people, when asked, will express a close relationship with their attendant. They want their attendant to be paid well. Good wages and benefits mean less turn over and improved quality. However, it is very unlikely that this relationship is seen in the context of worker rights, and the right of unions to organize. This intersection of self-interests has for too long been ignored to the detriment of both groups. The growth of consumer-directed services in many states, and the rebuilding of San Francisco’s Laguna Honda, the nation's largest nursing home, have brought this little discussed issue to the forefront. Complicating things, the union representation of workers in nursing homes and ICF-MR facilities has led to suspicion about what the true intentions of unions are. This institutional representation by unions like SEIU and AFSCME, has resulted in "progressive" disability advocates as well as union members, taking positions that have made both feel uncomfortable. This has led to confrontation and distrust. “What is the position of the union movement in relation to a disabled person’s ‘right’ to live and receive services in the community?,” has become a question asked more and more frequently around the country. Union spokespersons have historically rationalized institutions as being for our “safety” and that "these people" (us) need to be institutionalized. Disability advocates have in turn talked about SEIU and AFSCME being "jailers" of people with disabilities, concerned only about money, and not the civil rights of the people locked away in nursing homes and public institutions. The irony of the debate is that even while they were representing low-income nursing home workers, SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, was simultaneously organizing home-care workers in the Public Authority and other models, in states like California, Washington, Oregon, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Massachusetts. SEIU saw over a decade ago that the number of home care workers were quickly expanding and that these workers were underpaid and often without healthcare and other benefits. They saw this as an opportunity for recruiting and organizing new union members. AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees has also begun to move into the arena of home care organizing, although at a much slower rate than SEIU. In fact, AFSCME has actually been the flashpoint of the concerns the disability community has had about unions. Historically the fight for de-institutionalization has focused primarily on people with cognitive/mental disabilities warehoused in publicly funded state institutions. The public service workers in these institutions were relatively well paid with benefits. As a result, public employee unions, like AFSCME, have fought against, and in many states have succeeded in stopping or slowing, any movement to close or downsize these facilities. The assumption has been that community service jobs are low pay with no benefits. Though disability advocates have proposed portability of benefits as a solution to this problem, AFSCME has continued to oppose closure of facilities. The de-institutionalization that has occurred over the last 30 years has too often moved people from large facilities to smaller facilities or group homes. It is only in recent years that the community service system has begun to focus more on an individual having a personal attendant in their own home (Consumer control/Self-determination). The 1999 Supreme Court's Olmstead decision broadened the de-institutionalization movement to include folks in nursing homes and other institutions. It also gave new impetus for disability advocates to aggressively fight unnecessary institutionalization before someone had been deprived of their home in the community. In addition the $1.75 billion federal Money Follows the Person Demonstration has intensified the “rebalancing” efforts in every state around their institutionally biased long term care systems. The independent living /self-determination model of personal attendant services has historically defined consumer control as “give me the money and I will hire my own attendant.” Many community organizations have become fiscal intermediaries to assist the consumer in the payroll requirements, but the control still remains with the disabled person. This definition has challenged those in the union movement to figure out how they could organize these community workers without making each person with a disability a bargaining entity. The California solution, one of the first in the country, was to create Public Authorities which act as bargaining agents while allowing the individual to exert consumer control. To date this has been the primary model promoted by the union movement. Advocates in the disability community believe however, that one model of organizing community workers will not address the various consumer directed delivery options that now exist throughout the country. Simply stated: “One size won’t fill all”. Questions that need to be asked and discussed as we continue to move forward include: 1. Are there other models besides Public Authorities that will allow unions to organize and still preserve individual consumer control/self-determination principles? 2. Are community service personal attendant jobs inherently low pay/no benefit occupations? Can we work together to advocate for good paying jobs with benefits in the community through political action as well as unionization? 3. Can the definition of consumer control/self-determination be expanded to include "Agencies with Choice" that allow the individual to select, manage and dismiss their personal attendant under an agency model that can also provide supports such as taxes, payroll, insurance and benefits? 4. Can the unions and the disability community work cooperatively to educate each other on their respective constituency’s needs, and develop consumer control/self determination models that address worker rights, wages and benefits? 5. Will lobbying efforts at the state legislatures be cooperative based on equitable input and decision making? How will disputes be settled? 6. Will existing consumer controlled entities continue to be an option even as unions organize Public Authorities at the state level, and if so, how? 7. Will unions attempt a federal “one size fits all” organizing model, or will they continue to make state-by-state efforts? 8. What about the “Right to Work” states where union organizing has been problematic? Are there other organizing/political opportunities besides the traditional unionization model? 9. Is there a set of principles we can agree on so that organizing campaigns in each state have a common value base to be held to and evaluated by? There are no simple answers to all of these questions, however there needs to be an open discussion to see where our common self-interests intersect. The best solutions will be found when the disability community is at the table with the unions negotiating as equals. SEIU has endorsed the Community Choice Act and is attempting to organize home-care workers throughout the country. AFSCME is making efforts to outreach and find a way to support the Community Choice Act. They, too, are moving into home care organizing. We must continue negotiating on the best way to get community workers increased wages and benefits, and these negotiations must be based on the principles of self-determination and consumer control. The AFL-CIO and Change to Win, working with the disability community, would be a powerful force in passing a reform agenda that includes: 1) transitioning from the institutionally biased long term care system to one that prioritizes the community; and, 2) increasing the wages and benefits for the workforce that will be necessary to provide these needed community services. Endorsement of, and aggressively working for the passage of the Community Choice Act in 2009, and promoting self-determination/consumer control principles, would go a long way toward changing our long-term care system that for too long has institutionalized us against our will, and exploited community attendants. Together we can achieve an INSTITUTION FREE AMERICA! as well as Livable Wages and Benefits.