In Biggest Drive Since 1937, Union Gains a Victory
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
LOS ANGELES -- Winning the biggest unionization drive in more than half a century, the Service Employees International Union gained the right Thursday to represent 74,000 Los Angeles County home-care workers who feed, bathe and clean for the elderly and disabled.
The organizing drive -- more than twice as large as any other in decades -- shows the labor movement's new aggressiveness and its new focus on recruiting low-wage workers, women and minorities.
Los Angeles County's home-care workers earn $5.75 an hour, the state minimum wage, and many said they voted for the union because they wanted better wages and benefits long denied them: health insurance and paid vacations.
"It's something big for us," said Maria Alvarez, who complained that after 14 years on the job she still earned $5.75.
"I'm so happy about the union I feel like flying. They'll help us win benefits, like health insurance and vacations. Right now, we don't have nothing."
State officials who counted the ballots, which were mailed in over the past month, said Thursday night that 16,250 workers voted for the union and 1,925 against.
As a result, the Service Employees Union will represent the county's 74,000 home-care providers, making it labor's biggest organizing victory, Federal officials and A.F.L.-C.I.O. officials say, since 1937 when 112,000 General Motors workers joined the United Auto Workers, after a historic sit-down strike the previous year.
Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/home-health-workers.html