Mark Gruenberg at People’s World report in what would be a major advance for Organized Labor in Virginia, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 512 is renewing its campaign to have the State be the official “employer” of thousands of Home Health Care Workers in the State to Unionize. But to do that, they must first get HB1263/SB378 through the State Legislature. It would repeal the State’s Jim Crow-era ban on Collective Bargaining for State Public Workers, create a Virginia Home Care Authority to be their employer of record, and create a State Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) to oversee the whole process - including follow-up Union Recognition Elections. If the Union succeeds, Virginia would join a handful of other States - including California, New York and Illinois, in establishing a State Authority that would be the employer of the Home Health Care Workers, allowing them to Unionize. While home health care companies in Virginia are expected to fight the measure, there’s a new complication on the horizon: Home health care firms pay their Workers with money they in turn receive from Medicaid, and the Republican-run Congress just slashed national Medicaid spending by more than $800 billion over the next decade to help pay for its 10-year $4.5 trillion tax cut for the 1%. Virginia Lawmakers approved a similar Bill last year to let the Home Health Care Workers Unionize, but then-Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin vetoed it. But new Governor Abigail Spanberger, a former Moderate-To-Liberal Congresswoman who campaigned for the State’s top political job on a platform of accountability and affordability - and easily won, is considered more sympathetic.

To Continue Reading This Labor News Report, Go To: Service Employees renew drive to unionize home health care workers in Virginia – People's World