Quinn, 1199: Health Care Agencies Must Pay Employees ‘Living Wage’

The City Council’s new speaker, Christine Quinn, and the state’s largest and most politically influential health care union yesterday demanded that home health care agencies pay their employees a “living wage” and cover their health insurance expenses.More than a dozen other council members also attended a news conference to announce an advertising blitz Local 1199 is launching to raise awareness about the issue and to pressure home health care agencies to increase employees’ benefits.Local 1199 is calling its demands the “Quinn Principles.” The union also wants health care facilities that contract with agencies that don’t meet the standards to stop doing so. It circulated a list of 115 community leaders and elected officials who have signed on to the effort.The union is planning a rally for Monday. It expects to attract thousands of home health aides and high-profile politicians such as Senators Schumer and Clinton to attend.The union’s president, Dennis Rivera, said it is “unconscionable” that aides who take care of the sick and elderly in the city live in poverty. In 2004, he led thousands of home health care workers in a strike that left many homebound patients without attendants for several days. His union has set $10 an hour as a benchmark and deemed the pay and compensation at eight of the 20 agencies in the city as subpar. Those agencies represent 20,000 aides.During last year’s strike, the agencies said they could not afford the salary increases.When asked about criticism that she is too cozy with the union, Ms. Quinn said she is just continuing the work she has done for the last four years. She also insisted that agencies have enough money to increase salaries without more taxpayer money.“We’re not asking today for an infusion of government money or city money,” she told reporters at City Hall. “We’re asking today for the agencies in this city to take the money they get and spend it on the workers, not on executive salaries, to spend it on the workers, not on profits.”Also yesterday, Ms. Quinn told NY1 that extending term limits is not at the top of her agenda. But she did not rule it out.“The issue of term limits is not on our immediate legislative agenda,” she told the television station.“I’m open to looking at changes legislatively. We’re also open to looking at changes through a referendum process. But, it’s not the top or immediate part of our agenda.”

Quinn, 1199: Health Care Agencies Must Pay Employees ‘Living Wage’

Quinn, 1199: Health Care Agencies Must Pay Employees ‘Living Wage’

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