1,000 N.J. Adult Care Providers Join CWA Through Card Check

Home caretakers for developmentally disabled adults, along with leaders and organizers from CWA Locals 1037 and 1040, join New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine as he signs an executive order recognizing the workers' new bargaining unit.

Through a card check campaign that began in 2006, two CWA locals in New Jersey have organized 1,000 providers who open their homes to care for developmentally disabled adults.

Gov. Jon Corzine signed an executive order recognizing the union March 5, two days after the state Board of Mediation verified that a majority of the workers, called sponsors, had signed cards seeking CWA representation by Locals 1037 and 1040.

"This is what 'standing together' really means," CWA District 1 Vice President Chris Shelton said. "These two locals accomplished great things by working collectively."

CWA President Larry Cohen praised the success as "a terrific example of organizing at its best."

Union organizers made contacts through members who knew some of the sponsors, and knew they'd attempted to organize in the past. They set up committees in the state's 21 counties, built a list of sponsors and a data base and began visiting homes.

Anne Luck, organizing director for Local 1037, said organizers collected union authorization cards from about 60 percent of the sponsors and respite providers, workers who take care of the patients when the sponsors need time off.

Sponsors take in up to four developmentally disabled adults and receive a monthly check from the state that covers room and board and pays wages based on how much care each patient needs, called skill pay.

CWA has already gotten back scores of bargaining surveys from the new members, who indicate a key issue is how the state assesses a patient's needs and categorizes them, which determines a sponsor's pay.

Over the next two months or so, the new unit will be electing a bargaining committee by mail and then, under Corzine's order, the state will begin negotiations with CWA.

The new members are expected to be divided evenly between the two locals.

Luck said the sponsors and locals are "thrilled" with what they believe to be the first unit of its kind in the nation. "For the sponsors who were at the signing, especially, they really felt the power of winning a union," she said.