WINGS-ku: WINGS #06-23 Homecare Worker Protest Today on WINGS: It's not rare for women migrants to work some of the least respected and worst paid jobs in their new countries. It is rare that they band together across languages and cultures to demand change. Homecare workers in New York City and State are doing that. Stay tuned. [wings music] In the 1980s, New York outsourced care work to private employment agencies, in order to SIDEstep public sector unions. The agencies have a scheme for underpayment, as you will hear. The audio from this passionate, multi-lingual rally by and for homecare workers, was recorded and hosted by Mimi Rosenberg and Ken Nash for their community radio program Building Bridges, based at the Pacifica-owned station WBAI in New York. ... ORDINANCE 175 WOULD HAVE LIMITED THE NUMBER OF HOURS HOME CARE AIDES COULD BE ASSIGNED AS NO MORE THAN 12 PER DAY NOR 50 PER WEEK. IT WENT TO COMMITTEE IN 2022 AND NEVER CAME OUT FOR A VOTE. ON WINGS, THESE ARE VOICES FROM A HOME CARE WORKER RALLY IN NEW YORK CITY, COURTESY OF THE COMMUNITY RADIO PROGRAM BUILDING BRIDGES. On WINGS, you are listening to excerpts from a rally in support of New York homecare workers. It aired in April 2023 in the series Building Bridges from community radio WBAI. The producers and hosts of that program are Mimi Rosenberg and Ken Nash. ... During decades, there have been many demonstrations of support for homecare workers, sometimes yielding a bit of improvement. But improvements can be illusory, and they can be rolled back. Organizers claim 80% of the last homecare work increase went to employment agencies and insurance companies, just 20% to workers. A ONE-DOLLAR RAISE IN THE MINIMUM WAGE FOR NEW YORK STATE HOMECARE WORKERS WAS SCHEDULED FOR OCTOBER 2023 = BUT THAT was cancelled by the legislature. NOW THEY'VE ANNOUNCED AN INCREASE FOR 2024, BUT THAT IS OFFSET BY CUTS IN THE so-called Wage Parity top-up payments that homecare workers won in 2012. SO ON PAPER NEW YORK CITY HOMECARE WORKERS WILL GET A MINIMUM OF 18.55 AN HOUR, BUT THEIR NET INCREASE WILL BE ONLY TEN CENTS. WORKERS IN LOWER NEW YORK STATE WILL LOSE A DOLLAR TEN IN MINIMUM COMPENSATION. DEMONSTRATORS HAVE CALLED FOR A STATE MINIMUM HOMECARE WAGE OF $21 DOLLARS AND 25 CENTS. WINGS thanks the Pacifica radio network, WBAI-FM, and Building Bridges producers Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg, for sharing the passionate multilingual voices of homecare workers in New York. You can find back editions of Building Bridges in the archives at WBAI.org. We also thank all the WINGS supporters, including your local community radio stations, Suzette Cullen, and Genevieve Vaughan - host of the salon series at maternalgifteconomymovement.org - that's all one word, maternal gift economy movement dot org. The WINGS sound logo is from Libana's album A Circle is Cast. I'm Frieda Werden, this is the Women's International News Gathering Service.