“The first home care workers in Alaska to join a union specializing in their industry have approved new contracts that set higher starting wages and establish a series of other benefits.
Nearly 1,000 employees of the state’s two largest home care companies, Consumer Direct and All Ways Caring, agreed to the contracts through their union, the Service Employees International Union 775.
The workers approved the contracts earlier this month, SEIU 775 said. The contracts set starting wages at $22.25 an hour, rising to $23.50 in July. There are higher wages for more experienced caregivers, a premium for those in areas with higher living costs and other benefits, including establishment of a grievance process.
‘I helped fight to win this contract because it means my family and I won’t have to choose which bills we can pay. We won’t have to struggle like that anymore. It’s going to make a big difference for us,’ Essie Frank, a Fairbanks caregiver and member of the All Ways Caring bargaining team, said in a statement released by SEIU 775. ‘It also means we’ll get more people who want to do caregiving working as caregivers because we can afford to do it.'”