There were cheers and tears in the ballroom of the building that houses the Direct Care Alliance, as people gathered on March 19 to honor the memory of Leonila Vega.

Nearly all the direct care workers and advocates in the room were friends or colleagues of Leonila's. Most were both, since Leonila had a gift for working with people she loved and loving the people she worked with. DCA is deeply grateful to all who attended and supported the event, as well as for all the love and support from our friends and colleagues over the past several months. Read more and visit our new tribute page for Leonila.

President Obama Nominates New Secretary of Labor: On March 18, President Obama nominated Thomas E. Perez as the new Secretary of the Department of Labor (DOL). Perez is a strong advocate for workers' rights whose previous positions include assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. DCA commends the nomination and looks forward to working with Perez, if confirmed, on initiatives to improve direct care jobs--including finalizing DOL's proposed regulations to extend the Fair Labor Standards Act's minimum wage and overtime protections to home care workers.

Healthy Families Act Reintroduction Paves Path for National Paid Sick Days Standard: On March 20, the Healthy Families Act was reintroduced in the U.S. Congress by Senator Harkin (D-IA) and Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT). The bill (S.631/H.R.1286) calls for a national paid sick days standard, so more working Americans can address their own health needs and those of their families without worrying about losing wages they can't afford to do without, perhaps even losing their jobs. Paid sick days are important to direct care workers, who have high rates of on-the-job injuries and chronic conditions and who need to be able to take care of themselves when ill rather than putting the people they care for at risk.

New Resources on Increasing Access to Affordable Long-Term Care Services: On March 20, The SCAN Foundation held a briefing on how to increase access to affordable long-term care services. Learn more about the briefing or watch it on video, or read a series of policy papers SCAN released that same day to summarize issues in long-term care financing and outline policy options for increasing affordable access to services.

Judy Clinco

I'm the president and CEO of Catalina In-Home Services in Tucson, Arizona. We offer personal care and support services. Our clients are all private pay. We have about 65 caregivers, who we call professional direct care workers. They all have formal training, and the majority are certified nursing assistants.

When I started the company in 1981, I felt very strongly that we were going to have to offer benefits if we were going to be able to be competitive in terms of being able to recruit and retain the best. So we have always offered paid time off.  We call it paid time off rather than paid sick days because you can also use it for vacation or personal time. And if you'd rather cash it out than use it, you can do that too. Read more from Judy Clinco.

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The Direct Care Alliance is the national advocacy voice of direct care workers in long-term care. We empower workers to speak out for better wages, benefits, respect, and working conditions, so more people can commit to direct care as a career. We also convene powerful allies nationwide to build consensus for change. 

If you have comments on this issue of The Direct Care News or ideas for future issues, please contact Elise Nakhnikian at 646-823-7434, enakhnikian@directcarealliance.org.