HowardCenter workers represented by a union are going on nine months without a contract, leading a group of them to picket over wages this week in Burlington.
“We don’t feel that anybody really knows what’s going on at the HowardCenter. We’re serving the community in jobs that most people would not want to do, they’re very stressful and low pay,” said Mike Kurt, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 1674, which represents HowardCenter’s direct care workers.
Kurt is a clinician with a master’s degree and five years experience. He said he makes $14 per hour.
“It’s embarrassing” Kurt said, adding that he and his colleagues are “grossly underpaid” compared to other social workers.
Vermont Department of Labor statistics appear to back him up. According to the department’s wage estimates from May 2013, the median hourly wage for community and social service occupations in the Burlington and South Burlington metro area was $18.04 per hour.
Low pay and difficult work is leading to morale problems, Kurt said, and the picketing was meant to draw attention to their situation.
Bob Bick, executive director of the HowardCenter, said that attracting and retaining a quality workforce is central to his organization’s mission of providing quality services to the thousands of people and families that rely on them for a wide range of services, including mental health and substance abuse care.
However, workers’ wages have to be considered as part of their overall compensation package, which the HowardCenter has worked to keep generous, he said. The agency offers 36 paid days off for employees in their first year, as well as health insurance for employees and their families that covers 83 percent of premiums. It also offers dental and life insurance, child care subsidies and a 401(k) fund match, he said.
“It doesn’t replace a viable and competitive wage, but it enters into the conversation,” Bick said.
HowardCenter and the union’s collective bargaining unit have met 16 times since last April when negotiations started. Their previous contract expired in July.
“It’s disappointing to me that we can’t get beyond where we are with the bargaining unit,” Bick said, adding that the union has turned down offers of additional benefits and more money for salaries.
Representatives from the union and HowardCenter met Wednesday to set ground rules for an upcoming round of negotiations that will start April 9, Kurt said. He left the mediation session feeling “optimistic” the two sides will find a resolution, he added.
One outstanding issue to be resolved is whether substitute workers are covered by the collective bargaining agreement. Subs receive just over $11 per hour and no benefits, according to Kurt. At the same time, high turnover is forcing HowardCenter to hire more of them.
“Since the number of subs and what they’re doing has expanded, we want to make sure they’re covered by the collective bargaining agreement,” Kurt said “We have to make sure someone’s speaking on their behalf.”
Bick rejects the idea that the HowardCenter is changing its practices when it comes to substitute workers.
“We’re always hiring subs to backfill positions; there is absolutely no organizational agenda to hire subs in place of full-time workers,” he said.
HowardCenter relies on the state and federal government for 90 percent of its funding, which makes it a challenge to raise wages, according to Bick.
“We’re looking at how to give our staff raises as we continue to struggle with state funding,” he said.
Gov. Peter Shumlin included a 2.5 percent Medicaid rate increase that would benefit the HowardCenter and other social service providers in his proposed budget. The increase is would have taken effect halfway through the state fiscal year, in January, making it effectively a 1.25 percent increase this calendar year.
However, a House committee recently halved that increase as part of efforts to pare back new health care spending in next year’s budget. A similar increase in 2014 was rescinded as part of budget cuts.
A 3 percent increase to Medicaid rates from 2013 is at the heart of a lawsuit filed by AFSCME Local 1674 against HowardCenter. In March 2014 the union sued for a 3 percent wage increase, which they say the HowardCenter has yet to make good on. They argue that the Legislature intended the increase to boost direct care workers’ pay.
HowardCenter officials see it differently. Because the increase didn’t start until part-way through this fiscal year, the increase actually amounted to only about 2 percent. In 2013, prior to the rate increase being approved, the union and HowardCenter management negotiated a contract that included a 1.6 percent raise in anticipation of that legislative increase to Medicaid rates.
The 1.6 percent was an estimate because they did not know how much the Legislature would increase the billing amount, but when it ended up being around 2 percent, they offered workers a flat amount to make up the difference, which the union refused.
The union contends that the 3 percent increase in Medicaid rates approved by Legislature should be on top of the 1.6 percent increase contained in the previous contract.
HowardCenter has 1,500 employees and AFSCME Local 1674 represents its 722 direct care workers, but according to an agency news release, only 129 are dues-paying union members.
At a rally hosted by AFSCME in June, workers said they love their jobs, serving the most needy people in Burlington. But it’s hard to focus on work when they can’t pay their own bills, they said.
