Klein — Volume 61, Issue 2

Home care workers represent one of America's fastest-growing occupations, yet they labor with minimal compensation, benefits, or employment security. Klein and Boris trace how home care became a crucial site of labor struggle through examination of Local 880 of Service Employees International Union (SEIU). In 1988, seventy-five Chicago home care workers protested in front of the Illinois Department of Aging director, demanding dignity and unionization rights. The union organized using grassroots action combined with political unionism to secure collective bargaining despite the Reagan Era's assault on public employee unions. Unlike manufacturing sectors, home care cannot be offshored—care work must remain geographically proximate to care recipients. The article traces how home care has become central to the contemporary care work economy, comprising 1.8 million workers, larger than iconic manufacturing industries of steel and auto. Home care work involves intimate daily tasks like bathing, dressing, and cooking essential for people to live with dignity. These essential workers earn average wages lower than all other healthcare jobs and historically lack employment security or benefits. Klein and Boris demonstrate that union organizing in home care—a pivotal sector for labor's future—required innovation beyond New Deal frameworks, transforming the public welfare state into terrain for worker struggle and reshaping labor movement strategy.

Topics: Labor & Employment · Administrative Law · Civil Rights

Keywords: home care workers · SEIU Local 880 · unionization · collective bargaining · care work · labor organizing · welfare state