Subject: RE: Addus Health Care Introduction
From: Andrea Edmiston <[email-masked]>
To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Cc: Laphonza Butler <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, Kimberly Evon <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 01:30:20 +0000

Nancy,

I will let Monica know and do an email introduction.

As for the other points you made in your email, I am on your email distribution list and have seen the letters that you and others have written and please believe they have not been ignored.  First, I want to address UHW’s ballot initiative.  ULTCW did not play a role in the creation of that ballot initiative nor have we taken a position on it.  As for the FLSA Overtime rule, it is our top priority to have it fully implemented and fully funded and we hope we can join forces with you to fight the Governor’s damaging proposal.

If you would like to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to call me.  I am happy to sit down and talk with you about these issues and find ways in which we can partner to protect in-home and community-based consumer directed care.

Thanks,
Andrea

From: [email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]> [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2014 1:27 PM
To: Andrea Edmiston
Cc: Laphonza Butler; [email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>; [email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>; [email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>; [email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>; [email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>; [email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>; [email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>; [email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>; [email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>; Kimberly Evon; [email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>
Subject: Addus Health Care Introduction

Andrea, Thank you for getting back to me so soon. I and other consumer representatives will talk to the representative from Addus,  but that's not the point. The Addus agency brings up bad memories for reasons I will explain later in this letter, but what I think what is so sad is that you express that you have no intention to destroy the Independent Provider mode of Consumer Directed Care, yet two actions by the SEIU could do just that. It's so important we get on the same page and that SEIU understands how people with disabilities feel about what we perceive to be the terrible attack on our disability civil rights movement by these two SEIU endeavors, so that we have some hope of healing this division between us.

The ballot initiative for 75 hours of mandatory training initiative greatly threatens the practical reality of people with disabilities finding IHSS workers to be able to continue living in the community without using nursing agencies. And many of us violently oppose nursing agencies in consumer directed care, because they represent a medical model that we fought mightily to escape from and are still fighting to free our brothers and sisters from. The 75 hour mandatory training initiative, if it passes, will make it terribly hard for those of us in California, to find any worker willing to go through that training when they can barely find the time for a two hour orientation, because they are so underemployed, frequently have multiple jobs and no computers to make 75 hours of general training practical.

Furthermore we feel 75 hours of general classroom training does little to help consumers while depleting the state budget of hundreds of millions of dollars that should be going directly to our workers to provide care for us.  I wrote that in my open letter to Robert Harris which I will paste at the bottom of this email if you haven't seen it. I'm afraid as I write this now that you may not be on my email distribution and that you and President Laphonza Butler not have seen our letters regarding how concerned we are about the 75 hour mandatory training and the Department of Labor rules as written impacting Medicaid funded and other consumer directed not-for-profit services. I will make sure both of your email addresses are on all our posts in the future.

If federal money has become available for training, we in the IHSS Consumers Union (who have not yet had a chance to talk to ADAPT or NCIL about) think what would be wonderfully useful would be to make  voluntary specialty certifications for those who work with consumers with cognitive and mental health issues (i.e. Alzheimer's, dementia, autism, and mental illness) and receive higher pay for that certification. This would keep training voluntary, and use federal money to make it truly useful.

In our view, general classroom training has little of value to anyone while being a tremendous burden, and that our on-the-job training should be paid for because it does help. But foremost, mandatory training is not constructive because it takes hundreds of millions of dollars from the finite revenues of California and other Medicaid funded IHSS programs, which will surely result in cuts to worker and consumer hours as well as creating enormous burdens to workers and consumers as it did in Washington state. In Washington state, where SEIU's similar initiative was approved, it greatly diminished the pool of providers, 70% of the workers didn't make it through the training, and consumers and workers saw a cut in their hours.

The other devastating potential impact on our lives from the SEIU, stems from the refusal to sit down at the table with  ADAPT and the National Council on Independent Living and other impacted stakeholders to create a compromise over the Department of Labor overtime rules.  In spite of years of warnings to the SEIU (including a meeting we had with you) that the Department of Labor new rules could have a devastating impact on IHSS families providers, their family income, and their ability to care for their children and parents at home, the SEIU and partner unions pushed forward and would not sit down at the table with impacted stakeholders and draw up a compromise to avoid this potential devastation. As a result we are seeing a high-stakes game of chicken playing out here in California with the lives of consumers, families, and providers hanging in the balance.

In violation of the Guiding Principles with ADAPT regarding voluntary training and not making moves that would harm us, your allies, you have moved forward. And we were your allies. We got arrested and demonstrated and partnered with you to the legislature to get better wages and benefits for our workers. I helped David Rolfe and Kathy Sullivan organize Public Authorities in other states because you promised us a progressive partnership to increase our workers salaries and benefits. Lillibeth Navarro, copied on this letter created IRAPS an organization of consumers and providers sharing. She and I got arrested and demonstrated with the SEIU more times than we can remember to improve worker wages and keep them from being cut.

But to us, it feels that the SEIU has taken the power we worked with it to attain and took workers dues to become a juggernaut that creates policy, without any in-depth or sincere engagement of either workers or consumers, to create policies that increase your dues potential and influence, while harming us. We want to be wrong, we want to be mistaken in this. That is why it Is so critical that we come together again, and that you suspend these destructive initiatives until you modify them with our material contributions to changing them for the better.

So it is when you approached me about the 5% contract mode with the Addus agency introduction that all this pent-up sadness and fear came up. Also, before you came to the SEIU, the Addus agency became infamous in Tulare County where it privatized IHSS into its own nursing agency, greatly cutting hours to consumers while increasing costs to states by almost threefold. We needed legal aid to protect us there. So, when I received the email from you last night Andrea it brought up so much. That's why it felt disingenuous to me that you have "absolutely no interest in destroying the independent provider mode" of consumer directed care. I hope it is because we are just misunderstanding each other.

I think I speak for us all when I say no people would be happier to find out we were wrong than ADAPT, the National Council on Independent Living, and members of the IHSS Consumers Union and that the SEIU genuinely does want to forge a creative, progressive partnership with us again. If the worker unions would again like to sit down with us, we could make such a strong movement for in-home care together! And we would be so much stronger together because our moral compass would be moving us to the goodness of in home and community living in consumer directed care.

Most sincerely,

Nancy Becker Kennedy

Join the IHSS Consumers Union on Facebook at

http://www.facebook.com/groups/IHSS.ConsumersUnion/

"Nothing About Us Without Us!" (Latin: "Nihil de nobis, sine nobis") is a slogan used to communicate the idea that no policy should be decided by any representative without the full and direct participation of members the group(s) affected by that policy. This involves national, ethnic, disability based or other groups that are often thought to be marginalized from political, social, and economic opportunities.

In a message dated 2/12/2014 6:12:38 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]> writes:
Nancy, I will let Monica know you are not interested in meeting or speaking with her.  SEIU has absolutely no interest in destroying the independent provider model, consumer rights to direct their care nor do we want to see it diminished.  We will continue to stand with you to fight to protect the program.  I am sorry that is what you felt my email represented.

Andrea

Andrea Edmiston
SEIU ULTCW
Policy Director
2910 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90057
Office: (213) 985-0408
Cell: (213) 300-6157
www.ULTCW.org<http://www.ULTCW.org> | twitter: @SeiuULTCW

Sent from my iPhone

What we're trying to say Robert, is that 75 hours of mandatory training will make it almost impossible for any of us to find providers. It will be a tremendous burden to workers, brought to them by their own union. And that it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars in California as it cost $81,000,000 in the state of Washington. We are trying to say that this is money intended by the taxpayers to be going for the care of Seniors, People with Disabilities and our Workers. Instead you'll be using it for 75 hour meaningless general training programs that will burden workers and give almost nothing of value to the training that we individually give our providers, on the job, and that you should instead seek funds to pay for that, while keeping academic trainings voluntary.

We are trying to say that these expensive training programs that the SEIU is promoting and  the bureaucracies necessary to keep them going will only benefit the SEIU. That your ballot initiative will only take away needed public funds for the care of Seniors and Persons with Disabilities and for the pay of our IHSS workers. What we are trying to say Robert is that this push for 75 hours of general training that resulted in Seniors and People with Disabilities seeing a 10% cut in their hours in Washington is not something we want to see repeated in California. We're saying that rather than improving provider retention it will cause many workers to leave the system. We feel we are being exploited by your union to make money off of taxpayer money intended for our care.

We are saying is that we were enthusiastic about a progressive alliance with SEIU, when the public authorities began because we thought you would get better wages and benefits for our workers and now we see that you are using the enormous amount of money you take from workers pay to become a juggernaut that pushes initiatives that hurt both workers and seniors and people with disabilities. We are saying that you violated the pack you made with ADAPT not to make moves that would not hurt people with disabilities. With this initiative the SEIU is putting our Independent Living greatly at risk and burdening and harming our workers as well. We're trying to tell you that we will not give our civil rights up to you without a enormous battle and that we will tell everyone in California we can with our voices, because we cannot combat the millions of dollars you will use for your message to bring to California this measure that was in so destructive in Washington state.

Click here: Editorials | Vote No on I-1163, a grab for public money | Seattle Times Newspaper<http://seattletimes.com/html/editorials/2016439231_edit09initiative1163.html>

http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2016636033_guest31laws.html

http://www.change.org/petitions/registered-california-voters-reject-the-seiu-uhw-ballot-initiative-requiring-75-hours-of-training-for-homecare-workers?share_id=tKnLTSwWGS&utm_campaign=share_button_action_box&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition
Nathan Loose<http://www.change.org/users/73996318> MOUNT VERON, WA
·         about 1 month ago
·           Liked 2

I became a Consumer of the In-home LTC system after breaking my neck in 1992. I strongly agree that the voters of California State NOT repeat what SEIU did in Washington State. SEIU will drive away all caregivers that didn't work during your election year. SEIU forced out all caregivers who didn't work in 2011 stating they would need retrained since the caregiver had no work in 2011. This was hard on our referral registry caregiver pool. Our Dept of Health had to impose on the Consumer for the first time a $175 fee to access care in my home. SEIU should not be able to put an initiative to the people so to affect policy in the Consumers home by placing a fee barriers and time constraints to finish training between Consumer and potential caregiver. This can and will open the doors to abuse to the Consumer.. When a consumer is stuck, we will do anything to get and keep care...even when the caregiver is abusive. Please, don't allow a Union to dictate what training is necessary. We are the trainers. The Consumer or guardian of consumer is the primary trainer for the caregiver. Your majority voters will NOT know the impacts of SEIU involvement in policy change. SEIU knows that the LTC system must deliver care to those In-home consumers. SEIU found funding for the training...at the expense of taking 10% or 25 hours of care from me and others.

please tell me what you are trying to say

Robert Harris
Harris & Wenbourne LLC
1017 L Street # 739 Sacto, Ca.  95814
25 NW 23rd Ave Suite 6 Portland Or. 97210
Mobile 916-832-6931
[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>
Robert Harris
[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>

Join the IHSS Consumers Union on Facebook at

http://www.facebook.com/groups/IHSS.ConsumersUnion/

"Nothing About Us Without Us!" (Latin: "Nihil de nobis, sine nobis") is a slogan used to communicate the idea that no policy should be decided by any representative without the full and direct participation of members the group(s) affected by that policy. This involves national, ethnic, disability based or other groups that are often thought to be marginalized from political, social, and economic opportunities.
> On Feb 11, 2014, at 9:32 PM, "[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>" <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>
>
> Oh yes Ernie, the infamous Addus agency of Tulare County is very much in my memory! As Dorothy Parker would say, "What fresh hell is this?" that the SEIU has cooked up for us. Andrea, have you been at the SEIU long enough or understand well enough the depth to which you are destroying the freedom and independent living we have known on IHSS?  If not, we need to have a long discussion, maybe a weekend retreat,  on how much the SEIU is assaulting us and our civil rights movement.  I pray it's just a lack ofunderstanding that can be rectified and peace restored. -- Nancy
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ECastano <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>>
> To: Nancybk <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>>
> Sent: Tue, Feb 11, 2014 6:41 pm
> Subject: Re: Addus Health Care Introduction
>
>
> I hope you remember these guys and how they cut hours.
>
> Hugs,
>
> Ernie
>
> In a message dated 2/11/2014 3:05:08 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]> writes:
> fyi
>
>               From: [email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>
> To: [email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>
> Sent: 2/11/2014     3:03:21 P.M. Pacific Standard Time
> Subj: Addus Health Care     Introduction
>
>
>        Hi Nancy,          I hope you are doing well.  Monica Bush with Addus     Health Care reached out to me asking for an introduction to you and members     of the LA disability rights community, particularly those who sit on the     PASC Board and are members of the IHSS Consumers Union.  She is     interested in having an open conversation with you around Addus’ interest in     being the agency of choice to provide the up to 5% of IHSS caseload hours in     LA allowed under the CCI.  I wanted to give you a heads up that I will     be sending you an email introducing you to Monica unless you ask me not     to.  Please let me know if you are not open to this.  I do not     think Addus is the first agency interested in becoming the agency of choice     for that 5% under the CCI, but it may be the only agency that is reaching     out to consumers and not just health plans.         Thanks,    Andrea          Andrea     Edmiston    SEIU     ULTCW    Policy     Director    2910     Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90057    Office:     (213) 985-0408    Cell: (213)     300-6157    www.ULTCW.org<http://www.ULTCW.org> | twitter:     @SeiuULTCW         Join us in fighting for     the rights of all who call California home.  Visit www.ULTCW.org<http://www.ULTCW.org> for more information on our Dignity California     campaign.        &nbsp;
>
>

Join the IHSS Consumers Union on Facebook at

http://www.facebook.com/groups/IHSS.ConsumersUnion/

"Nothing About Us Without Us!" (Latin: "Nihil de nobis, sine nobis") is a slogan used to communicate the idea that no policy should be decided by any representative without the full and direct participation of members the group(s) affected by that policy. This involves national, ethnic, disability based or other groups that are often thought to be marginalized from political, social, and economic opportunities.