The Militant - January 30, 2006 -- N.Y. home health-care workers demand living wage

Vol. 70/No. 4 January 30, 2006

N.Y. home health-care
workers demand living wage

BY MICHAEL ITALIE
NEW YORK—Nearly 1,000 home health aide workers and their supporters demonstrated in Harlem here January 16 to demand “a living wage” and to mark the Martin Luther King Day holiday. “I make only $6.75 an hour, and I’ve been doing this work for 19 years,” said Christine Johnson along the march route. She is one of thousands of members of Service Employees International Union Local 1199 here who do home health-care work.

There is no guaranteed 40-hour workweek, Carlotta Bishop pointed out. If the workers fall below 40 hours in a week they lose all medical coverage for the coming month.

“They’re working people like us,” said bus driver Greg Jordan, one of a number of Transport Workers Union (TWU) members who joined the march. TWU Local 100 members walked out in late December, shutting down the city subway and buses for three days, in a contract dispute with the Metropolitan Transit Authority. “All these companies are making money off our backs,” Jordan said. “Working people have to stick together.”

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