Capitolwire: Consumer Workforce Council advocates rally for support

By Laura Olson, April 1st, 2009
Staff Reporter
Capitolwire

HARRISBURG (April 1) – More than 200 people stood outside the Capitol through Wednesday’s rain showers to show their support for a proposal to create a board to organize long-term caregivers.

The proposal would create a Consumer Workforce Council, which would establish a registry of caregivers who work with the elderly and disabled, and it would serve as an advocate for higher wages and health insurance for those workers.

Supporters say the plan would help expand access to home care and ensure a reliable workforce of care-takers. But critics argue it would create needless bureaucracy over a system that already happens privately.

Disability-rights leaders, elderly advocates and several state representatives spoke to the crowd. Kathleen Kleinman, of the independent-living group TRIPIL Services, said she and others will be talking to state officials about the need for such a group to look into the needs of the caregivers for fair wages.

Others focused on maintaining a core of reliable caretakers who understand their clients’ needs.

“The Consumer Workforce Council will also stabilize the workforce so that our brothers and our sisters and our parents, our grandparents, can have safe, reliable care, and I emphasize safe. Safe! Safe! Safe!” said Rep. Peter Daley, D-Fayette, as the crowd shouted back, “Safe!”

“The Consumer Workforce Council is simply a low-cost addition to Pennsylvania’s continuum of long-term care. I want it, you want it, and all Pennsylvanians want it. Let’s get it done!” Daley added.

Rep. Marc Gergely, the vice chair of the House Labor Relations Committee, also spoke, remarking that his constituents want to receive at-home care, and he wants to look for ways to improve that care.

“We are going to move this through, continue this discussion, and protect the consumers and the advocates that we all stand for,” said Gergely, D-Allegheny.

Gergely said legislators are awaiting the results of interdepartmental discussions before they can carry the proposal forward with any legislation.

Currently, the council proposal is under review by the Departments of Public Welfare, Aging and Labor and Industry, said labor department spokesman Christopher Manlove. The review is to make sure the proposal is in compliance with existing laws and regulations, he said.

There’s no deadline for the review, though the departments are working as quickly as possible, Manlove said.

Gov. Ed Rendell and administration officials have put additional focus on long-term care, working this session to create the new Department of Aging and Long Term Living. Aging Secretary John Michael Hall also has told the legislative aging panels that the department is working to increase access to community- and home-based care as opposed to nursing homes.

“The governor believes that the proposal has merit and he supports the concept,” said Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo. “He will review any legislation that reaches his desk carefully.”

Others, however, including some of those who employ caregivers themselves, don’t see the need for a state system to replace their current care networks. They say a government-run registry would force caretakers into a union system, adding costs and paperwork and reducing consumer choice.

Jesse Charles, a Lancaster man who is confined to a wheelchair, said he currently uses five caregivers, and he has concerns about how the proposal would impact his ability to manage those caretakers.

“Let’s say I wanted to eliminate one of the positions – it would be very difficult for me to do that with someone else as part of the employment process,” Charles said. “Right now I have an agency that oversees a lot of those activities, but I can choose to hire or fire whoever I want to, whenever.”

Charles uses caregivers through United Disabilities Services, a Lancaster organization that caters to both disabled and elderly residents. When he needs to find new caregivers, the agency is able to help him with that process, making a state agency seem redundant, he said.

“I have friends that happen to use wheelchairs to get around, and they’re on the same thing I do, and we talk, we e-mail,” he said of his current resources. “We can find people.”

Bill Kepner, senior vice president at United Disabilities Services, said their surveys have not found a workforce shortage in either the disability or elderly services. There are 800 providers in the state and more than 60 CareerLink offices that list those workers, he said.

But his group agrees that there should be more focus on pay and benefits for those workers.

“The government has an ability to increase wages and benefits without forming a registry, that we truly believe is leading to a union,” Kepner said. “Through cost-of-living increases and other ways and means, we can get higher wages and benefits for our workers... We don’t need another piece added to all of this.”