PA Governor’s Executive Order Raises Questions re “Unionizing” Home Care Workers
On February 27, Pennsylvania’s new governor, Tom Wolf, issued Executive Order 2015-05 regarding “participant-directed home care services.”
The order reportedly reflects the Governor’s interest and support for home care for seniors and persons with disabilities, while also recognizing potential issues such as low wages or absence of benefits, high turnover, inconsistent quality or lack of standards. The order:
- Creates a Governor’s Advisory Group to advise the administration on “ways to improve the quality of care delivered” through publically funded home care service programs;
- Recognizes a “representative for Direct Care Workers for the purpose of discussing issues of mutual concern,” while also authorizing a procedure for “election” of the representative; and
- Establishes a “Direct Care Worker List” of all workers paid through state programs, and further permits “an employee organization that has as one of its primary purposes the representation of director care workers” to petition the state to represent a particular unit of direct care workers.
As set forth in recent media reports, the Executive Order has met with resistance from some quarters, including those who are challenging the order as unlawfully permitting “unionization” of home care workers. On April 6, 2015, a complaint seeking injunctive relief from implementation of the executive order was filed in the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court by a home care worker and his long-time client, a “quadriplegic adult with muscular dystrophy receiving care from the [state administered] Attendant Care Services Act..” The complainants are reportedly represented by “The Fairness Center, a conservative public-interest law firm.”