Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
Three years ago Obama came out in support of a Department of Labor rule that would change labor law and would remove the exemption that prevents workers in the home-care industry from being covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The FLSA provides some legal protection for most American
workers and was adopted in 1938 amid the rise of the CIO, the factory
occupations (two years after the Flint 44-day occupation) and the growth of
industrial unionism.Three years ago Obama came out in support of a Department of Labor rule that would change labor law and would remove the exemption that prevents workers in the home-care industry from being covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Under heavy lobbying (bribing), the Department of Labor is holding off on implementing the
proposed changes which is pleasing the right- wingers who think the change
should be scrapped, “The fact that the department plans to ignore
its own rule after it goes into effect should be proof enough that it should be
scrapped altogether”, says Lamar Alexander, a Senator from Tennessee, according to Business Week. This is the guy who, when he was Governor, “ paid $1 for an option to buy a Knoxville newspaper with a group of friends, and
later traded the right for stock worth $620,000.” ( NY. Times.) That, my friends, is not work---it’s having
connections and using public office for personal gain, it's how they build contacts.
When it comes to home care workers, Lamar and other wasters
with their snouts in the public trough, have unusual partners. Disability
rights groups are also opposed to home care workers coming under the FSLA. Their argument is that if the health care
worker is allowed to work overtime, receive the minimum wage and travel time
that are provisions under the Act, without “increasing the amount of government
money able to pay for them” BW writes, it will mean hours
will be cut and services to the disabled will worsen. “In the absence of an
increase in Medicaid funding to cover those costs, we are going to see people
with disabilities have our services reduced in quantity and quality,” says Ari,
Ne’eman, who is the president of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network.
The ASA and Ne’eman are joined by the Center for Disability
Rights and what the Journal describes as the “Grass roots” organization Adapt. Adapt organized a protest outside
the home of Labor Secretary Tom Perez and though he supports the right of
workers to paid “fair” wages (whatever that means. Fair to whom? The boss or
the workers) Bruce Darling, an Adapt spokesperson argues that, “To pay those
wages, people with disabilities are going to lose their freedom.” Why is that so? Is it in the Bible?
So Mr. darling and people claiming to be defending the
rights of some of the most unfortunate among us, find themselves in bed with
some of the most privileged among us in an offensive against another section of
the working class that is extremely exploited and abused. I have spoken to people that work with the
disabled and those that are in such a condition that they need someone to wipe
their own backsides. Just lifting a
human being takes a lot of work.It is not easy.
We know that capitalism doesn’t value social work because
there’s no money in it unless your capital is tied up in private facilities
that can profit from misfortune or simple old age while paying paupers wages.
My mother had a debilitating stroke, I am well aware of what
home help does. As the Journal puts it,
they, “…help with daily activities like
bathing, moving around the house, and eating meals, and with tasks like paying
bills. They can also assist with medication, change surgical bags, and help with
rehabilitation exercises.” Right, changing people’s waste bags isn’t worth
paying much for is it? In Kansas, the Journal reports, Medicaid pays “….just
$25 a night to workers who provide ‘sleep cycle support,’ which can involve
turning clients and emptying catheter bags.”
Home help is a very lucrative business for private capital
because it is the fastest growing industry in the US and a huge section of the
industry is funded by the taxpayer through Medicare and other programs.
The average home care worker makes $17,000 a year and the
BLS reckons there will be about three million of them by 2020. What an
incredibly important and human role these workers play in society compared o
Donald Trump say, or Lamar Alexander for instance.
What the disability rights people should be doing is joining
with home-care workers to raise their wages and improve their working
conditions. Our taxes would be better
used training them in all sorts of medical and health procedures that would
help them improve care and they should be well paid for such socially important
work.
Alexander and others like him want to keep pay low for
everyone because he profits from it as an investor. He opposes public expenditure unless it is to
offer opportunities to the private sector to profit from public funds, like
private toll-ways and the like. The offense industry gave a real boost to the
economy in the last quarter and none of the small government folks have a
problem with that. “Government spending----the
vast majority due to military expenditure----posted its largest increase since
2009.” the Wall Street Journal reports
in a separate article.
The position the disability rights advocates are taking here
is flawed in so many ways. They are allowing themselves to be part of the crowd
that take from one section of the working class to give to another, in this
case, they are accepting that it will be the health worker that will mired in
poverty in order for the disabled to continue to receive what is already an
inadequate service. They are accepting that there is no money available. But
that’s not the case is it. It’s a matter
of priorities. These predatory wars of US capitalism are costing trillions of
dollars and millions of lives.
We all know that poverty, insecurity, social alienation, low
self esteem, all this contributes to drug and alcohol abuse, destroys personal
relations and the family and leads to all sorts of medical problems.
Where is the outrage in this country that human beings are
doing such important and laborious work for $350 a week. The sorters at our
local dump, another crucial social function, have just been led out on strike
for a week by their officials and voted to go back yesterday, the union
leadership of other unions attacked them in the process. They earn about $12 an hour and will receive
(maybe) less than $2 an hour raise a year over the next five years bringing
them up to $21 by 2019. An official of
the International union representing the workers says of the settlement that it
will, “dramatically improve their wages”. What do you think he earns? There will be nothing “dramatic” about $21 an
hour in 2020, it’s not enough to live ion here in California now.
This cannot go
on. This country will explode at some
point. The union leadership to be quite
honest is ideologically bankrupt and we will not change the situation without
removing them through huge internal political battles. It is incredible that the likes of Lamar
Alexander and all the 1% politicians in both parties that all get rich off the
taxpayer can even get an echo in society, can even dare show their face for
fear of being torn apart by their victims like the poor, disabled, workers who
have lost jobs, homeowners who have lost homes, veterans whose lives have been
shattered while the likes of Dick Cheney profit from war.
They are spitting in
our faces.
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