Recently unionized home care workers in Alaska approve first contracts

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.”

Among Alaska’s approximately 5,660 home health and personal care aides, the mean hourly wage was $18.53 in 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That average put Alaska in fifth place among states for pay in the sector.

The contracts approved by the Consumer Direct and All Ways Caring workers raised pay rates by $3 an hour, said Elana Rhys, a union spokesperson. Starting pay had been below $20 an hour at both agencies, she said.

Employees of Consumer Direct joined SEIU 775 in the summer of 2023 and the All Ways Caring workers joined the union months later, in winter, Rhys said.

They are the first Alaska workers to join SEIU 775, she said.

Including the Alaska employees, SEIU 775 now represents more than 53,000 long-term care workers in three states: Washington, Montana and Alaska.

Other Alaska health care workers are members of different unions. Anchorage-based Alaska Laborers Local 341, for example, represents nurses and service workers at Alaska Regional Hospital and nurses and certified nursing assistants at PrestigeCare, operator of a facility in Anchorage.

Alaska’s need for home care workers and long-term care workers is increasing as the state’s population ages, with demand outstripping supply, state officials have noted.

“Growth in the direct care workforce has not kept pace with the growth in the senior population,” said the most recent Alaska State Plan for Senior Services.

[Alaska tribal health organization is building a $70 million skilled nursing facility to meet demands of an aging population]

Worker shortages have plagued both home care services and assisted living facilities, according to the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority.

While the percentage of elderly residents in the state is one of the smallest in the nation, that population segment is growing faster in Alaska than in any other state.

Representatives of Consumer Direct and All Ways Caring were not immediately available to comment on the newly approved contracts.

Originally published by the Alaska Beacon, an independent, nonpartisan news organization that covers Alaska state government.