[lbo-talk] SMART on the SEIU

Mark Rickling mrickling at gmail.com
Tue Feb 26 18:08:16 PST 2008


On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 7:26 PM, joseph noonan <joseph at noonan.ws> wrote:


> That is pathetically disingenuous; do you live in California? If you do,
> you should know the minimum wage in CA is $8.00/hr, since January this
> year. It was 7-something -- almost two bucks over Federal last year. It
> hasn't been 5.85/hr in CA since 1998.
>
> <http://www.dir.ca.gov/Iwc/MinimumWageHistory.htm>

Thanks. Had no idea, but I should have suspected that CA had a higher floor than the federal law. Also, I'll take as true the unstated implication of your post that this state min wage law applies to Independent Providers (if it doesn't, thanks in advance for the correction.) As you may or may not know, the Supreme Court reaffirmed this past summer that the FLSA (think fed min wage, overtime, etc.) did not apply to homecare workers who work for agencies, so one might be forgiven for not immediately thinking of legislated wage floors for a profession that has historically been excluded from them. [FYI SEIU filed an amicus brief in this case and argued before the Court in support of homecare workers: http://www.seiu.org/media/pressreleases.cfm?pr_id=1423]


> 9/hr for caring for people's health and medical needs is disgraceful and
> trying make excuses for it is repugnant.

Who is making excuses? You write as if it is SEIU that is to blame for compensation levels below a living-wage. I'd really hate to think that you just lazily assumed that because homecare wages are only $1 above the CA min that the union hasn't done jack shit to improve the lives of its members. If this isn't the case, I've got a bunch of questions for you:

-- How exactly are homcare wages set on a county level in CA? -- How much would it cost to raise wages $1/hr. in LA County? -- Where would this public money come from? What budgetary constraints do counties and the state of CA operate under? -- What, exactly, has the union done to raise wages, and how has this been woefully insufficient? -- What alliances has the union formed with homecare consumers and other potential allies, and how have these been woefully insufficient? -- What forces exist in CA to keep homecare wages low? How, exactly, has the union been derelict in trying to overcome this opposition? -- Were you an elected leader of the union, what specifically would you have tried to do differently to raise homecare worker wages?

Additionally:

-- How did the CA min wage get to be where it is today? -- Did labor, including unionized homecare workers, play any part in raising it?

I eagerly await your informed response to these questions.



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