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Campaign Launched to Ensure Care for the Elderly
17 July 2011
WASHINGTON - Unions and their allies in civil rights, womens' rights, community and faith groups have launched a new national campaign to recruit millions of new givers of eldercare, improve and enhance those workers' rights and ensure needed care for the coming millions of elderly clients.
The 700 delegates of Caring Across Generations launched their drive with a congress in Washington last week, which preceded 15 other sessions to be held in 12 other cities nationwide in coming months. They also met on Capitol Hill with Senators John Kerry, D-Mass., and Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., among others.
Obama administration Labor Secretary Hilda Solis lent her voice to the drive.
The objective is to enhance community-based and home-based long-term care for the current 7.6 million elderly adults who need it and for the estimated one-fifth of the U.S. population that will need it, as the "baby boomers" age, by 2030.
Current home-care workers are usually underpaid, often subject to bad working conditions, are barred from organizing unless states give a sort of permission by setting up "employers" with whom they can negotiate and - thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court several years ago - don't even qualify for the minimum wage or overtime.
"The CAG campaign will help baby boomers and their families meet care needs by realizing the 'five fingers of the caring hand,' including: Creation of new, quality jobs in home care, labor standards and improved job quality for existing jobs and new jobs, training and career ladders for home care workers, a new visa category and path to citizenship for care workers and support for individuals and families in need of support and care, including the creation of a matching registry and maintenance and expansion of funding streams," the group said in its mission statement.
One of those funding streams may be the federal government, as CAG is telling Congress that home care is much less expensive, much more healthy and much more psychologically healthy for the elderly than nursing-home or other institutional care.
"Now is the time to invest in home care. It will save money, help people to stay healthy longer, protect consumer choice, support working families, and ensure that a stable workforce of well-trained caregivers serves our seniors," the group said.
It'll also create jobs: CAG estimates that to deal with the growing number of senior citizens - one "Baby Boomer" is now turning 65 every several minutes - the U.S. will need 2 million more paid caregivers by 2016.
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