With a voice on the job, care workers fight to keep their doors open and our economy strong

By Mary Troyan ·
Tags: Our Stories

Care workers help Americans through life’s most important and vulnerable moments — raising children, supporting aging parents and caring for people with disabilities. Without child care and home care workers, communities would grind to a halt and millions of families would see their lives turned upside down.  

But the people who provide that essential care are undervalued, underpaid and under attack by an administration run by billionaires who will never understand the challenges working people face trying to afford and find qualified professionals to care for a young child or an elderly parent.  

Care work is about dignity, stability and trust. That’s why AFSCME members are organizing to demand care workers receive the same respect they provide to the people in their care every single day.

The care crisis we can’t afford

When it comes to child care, AFSCME members see the crisis from all sides.  As child care providers, union members work long hours to run their business, care for children and keep their communities working.  

As parents, they are among the 15 million workers who rely on access to affordable, professional child care for their children so that they can go to work every day.  

When the child care system breaks down, everything else does too.

  

“Parents have to go to work. They have to be able to support their community… And if you don’t have a place where your kid can go and feel safe, you don’t feel comfortable going to work."

Armett Newman Child Care Provider and CSEA/AFSCME Local 1000 Member

Right now, the child care system simply cannot keep up with demand. Without access to affordable child care, parents leave the workforce, jobs go unfilled, productivity drops and families lose income. If we do not invest in solving this problem, this gap will cost the economy up to $329 billion over the next decade.  

AFSCME members are coming together and demanding more resources for the child care system.

When workers organize, they fight not just for themselves – but for the families who rely on them.     

The Trump administration recently declared a plan to illegally withhold $10 billion in child care and family assistance funds from five states: California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York. AFSCME members immediately recognized that these cuts pose an existential threat to their businesses, their neighbors and the children in their communities.   

So AFSCME members stepped up.   

Joining forces with other advocacy groups, AFSCME moved swiftly to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration to protect subsidy programs that working families need to afford child care. In a win for child care providers and families, the judge ordered that the funding continue flowing to the states while the case continues.

Union members like Armett Newman who run their own in-home child care businesses are tirelessly sounding the alarm about the dire stakes of these illegal cuts.   

In addition to fighting to protect child care providers, the union difference is also about making care more affordable for union members.   

AFSCME members across the country have negotiated creative ways to ease the child care burden on union workers. These victories include:   

  • Council 3 Local 1870 employees at Baltimore City Community College won guarantees for employee access to employer child care programs.   
  • Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE) Local 176 at the Kent County School District won flexible benefit plans or spending accounts that help pay for care with pre-tax income. 
  • Oregon Health and Science University employees, Council 75 and Locals 402 and 4820, established independent union-administered hardship funds to help employees suffering any kind of unexpected financial hardship, including those in need of child care assistance.  

AFSCME members are using their collective voice to demand more. That’s the union difference.   

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Photo: Getty Images

Care work deserves respect and a fair wage 

Child care is only part of the care crisis story.   

Across the country, millions of families rely on home care workers to help aging parents and to ensure people with disabilities and others live safely and with dignity in their own homes.  

And that need is only growing.  

By 2060, the number of adults in the U.S. age 85 and older is expected to nearly triple. Most say they want to remain in their homes as they age. To meet that demand, the government estimates nearly 740,000 new care jobs will be created through 2034 – more than any other occupation.   

But instead of building the future workforce that families will depend on, the Trump administration is pursuing policies that will make life even harder.  

The Department of Labor is considering a rule that would strip home care providers of minimum wage and overtime protections – a devastating blow for workers with already low hourly wages and long, unpredictable schedules.  

Again, AFSCME members are fighting back.   

Last year, in a direct response to the Trump administration’s plan, United Domestic Workers (UDW/AFSCME Local 3930) helped pass a state law protecting overtime pay for the 770,000 In-Home Supportive Services providers in California.   

Across the country, AFSCME members have flooded the administration with objections to their anti-worker overtime proposal. Without fair pay and overtime protections, many care workers would be forced to leave the profession entirely, leaving families scrambling to find the help they need.  

The fight for overtime pay remains a national issue and AFSCME workers are demanding even more.   

AFSCME members are pressing their allies in Congress to support the Fair Wages for Home Care Workers Act, which would block the Trump administration from taking away overtime and minimum wage rights for care workers nationwide.     

Care is a public good.  The workers who provide it and the families who need it deserve public policy and policy makers that respect and support them.  

"I get paid for taking care of him. It is a full-time job. I save the state millions of dollars that it would take to institutionalize somebody like this. They’ll say this isn’t 'a real job’ just because I don’t work 9-5. No, mine is 24-7."

Astrid Zuniga President of United Domestic Workers (UDW/AFSCME Local 3930) and a home care worker who cares for her son on the severe end of the autism spectrum.

The Union Difference

Care workers believe deeply in human dignity and quality of life.   

Every day, they make it possible for parents to keep working, for older Americans to stay safely in their homes, and for people with disabilities to live with independence and respect.   

And these workers are a lifeline for those in the so-called sandwich generation who may need help caring for both their children and their elderly parents at the same time.  

By coming together and organizing, union members have more power to battle the billionaires who’d rather have a tax cut than make family care more affordable for all.   

AFSCME members know the recipe for building a stronger care economy:   

Organize.   

Bargain.   

Demand more.   

For the workers who sustain America’s care system – and for the families who rely on it every single day.