As FierceHealthcare readers know, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has been attempting to organize Massachusetts' roughly 20,000 home health assistants. Yesterday, the home health workers voted to join the SEIU, giving the union a leg up at a moment when it's fighting even higher-profile battles to unionize within area teaching hospitals. Observers say the SEIU won support among the assistants by making pitches above and beyond its ability to raise wages and improve benefits; for example, it worked to sell state policymakers on the need for home care workers and the cost savings their help could offer.
The vote adds another large bloc of participants to the 1199SEIU, which already has 300,000 members. Observers speculate that the additional members will help the SEIU prevail in its organizing efforts at facilities like Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
To learn more about the vote:
- read this piece from The Boston Globe
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