Live-in care workers should be paid same, judge rules

OLYMPIA – Tommye Myers always took good care of her son when he was a boy. Now that she’s 75 years old and ailing, he wants to return the favor.

John Myers cooks and cleans for his mom, helps her bathe and go to the bathroom, drives her to kidney dialysis, monitors her heart problems, and does everything else she needs to live at home instead of in a nursing home. The state pays him about $400 a week as a home care provider.

But because Tommye Myers lives in her son’s house, the state cut his paid hours last year by about 20 percent. State officials decided that home care workers who live with their clients shouldn’t get paid for basic household tasks such as laundry and cooking.

“It put me in a heck of a situation,” said Myers. “If I go and find another job I won’t be here for mom.”

Myers fought the cutback in court – and won.

Thurston County Superior Court Judge Richard Hicks recently ruled that the state’s “shared living” rule is illegal. He ordered the Department of Social and Health Services to pay home care workers the same whether they live with their clients or not.

The department plans to appeal.

Adam Glickman, spokesman for the union that represents home care workers, called the ruling “a big slap at DSHS for trying to use backdoor rules to slash care for clients.”

Myers is just glad he can continue caring for his mom in his Aberdeen home. His mother is modest, Myers said, and embarrassed about needing help.

“Mom doesn’t want a stranger taking care of her,” he said. “I can give her a good life that a lot of older folks don’t get. I really wanted to try and prove a point that they shouldn’t get away with this.”

The shared living rule took effect last year. It says the state won’t pay for hours spent doing housekeeping, cooking or shopping if home care workers live with their clients. State officials reasoned that home care workers have to do those household chores for themselves anyway, so the state shouldn’t pay them extra to do it for their clients.

“It’s not a sensible use of public money,” said Rick Bacon, assistant director of home and community services.

Bacon said he did not know how many of the 24,000 home care clients in Washington state live with their providers.

DSHS has not yet resumed paying the money to the live-in providers, and Bacon said the agency will ask to put Hicks’ order on hold while it is appealed.

If the judge’s ruling stands, he said, “we would be spending a whole lot more state money on informal caregiving, which we feel public dollars should not be used to pay for.”

Home caregivers argue that cooking for someone with diabetes isn’t as easy as throwing some extra spaghetti in a pot, and doing laundry for someone who lacks bladder control isn’t part of most households’ normal chores.

“It’s kind of a no-brainer to me that if someone is incontinent, you would do their laundry separately,” said Meagan MacKenzie, an attorney with the Northwest Justice Project who represented Tommye Myers and another home care client in the legal challenge. Columbia Legal Services also helped argue the case.

Hicks ruled that the shared living rule violated a state law that says home care clients have the right to choose their provider, and violated a federal law requiring that home care clients who have the same needs get comparable services.

In his April 1 order, Hicks said his ruling applies to all home care clients, not just the two involved in the case.

The state has until May 1 to appeal the ruling.

Glickman, spokesman for Service Employees International Union Local 775, said the shared living rule was part of a pattern.

As home care workers got raises as part of their collective bargaining agreement, he said, the state has cut their hours.

“We’re hopeful now that they have gotten their clock cleaned in court, DSHS will agree the best thing to do is negotiate these things with stakeholders,” Glickman said.

A bill before the Legislature would require the state to bargain with SEIU over home care workers’ hours, in addition to wages and benefits.

It has been stuck in committee, but could be incorporated into the budget process.