NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Home healthcare workers protested a settlement between the union that represents them and 42 home care staffing agencies on Tuesday for unpaid wages from 24-hour shifts and other assignments.
The workers denounced the arbitrator’s Feb. 4 ruling that the staffing agencies must pay $30 million to over 100,000 healthcare workers represented by the 1199 Service Employees International Union for missed wages from as early as 2008, Gothamist reported.
The SEIU estimated workers would be entitled to as much as $6 billion if every hour on the job was paid for the last six years — the statute of limitations for wage claims.
The settlement will provide workers with less than $300 per person on average, though those who worked 24-hour shifts should receive between $2,571 and $3,600 per person.
A labor organizer with the Flushing Workers Center told Gothamist he represents workers owed almost $250,000.
The arbitrator took into account the potential for the payments to disrupt care if the companies who have been shorting the workers were forced to pay a large enough sum.
The staffing agencies shorted workers through a state policy that allows employers to pay aides for only 13 hours of a 24-hour shift as long as the worker gets eight hours of sleep, five of which are uninterrupted and is allowed three hours for meals.
Even with this policy, which labor leaders argue is abusive, multiple class-action lawsuits said these sleep and meal requirements weren’t being met or that workers never got the bonus pay mandated for working a 24-hour shift.
The protest was organized in Chinatown by the Ain’t I A Woman campaign, a coalition against 24-hour shifts and wage theft led by immigrant women homecare workers.
“1199 told me the arbitration would be good & fast,” said Lai Yee Chan at the protest. “Now, 7 years later, the union is treating us women of color as dirt! CPC [the Chinese-American Planning Council] stole more than $200,000 of wages from me. 1199, how much back pay are you planning to distribute for my loss?”
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