Home Health Care Report

The incoming DFL chair of a House health-care committee says that the unionization of some in-home care workers could be good for them and for the state.

The Star Tribune reports that Representative Tina Liebling of Rochester, who will chair the House Health and Human Services Policy Committee, made the comments at the presentation of a report into the status of personal care assistants.

The report was issued by the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute and funded by the Service Employees International Union.  SEIU and personal care workers will ask the new, DFL-controlled Legislature for authority to organize a union of in-home care workers. The union would cover those workers who are hired directly by the people they care for, and would include some people who care for elderly and disabled family members.

Gail MacInnes is a policy analyst with the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute.  She talked with KFAI's Siobhan Kierans and Dale Connelly on the Morning Blend.