As Congress returns from recess, workers and advocates will descend on Washington, urging lawmakers to follow infrastructure bill with Build Back Better

 

Build Back Better’s historic investments create hundreds of thousands of jobs, lift wages for majority woman of color workforce, expand care access to millions 

 

WASHINGTON — As Congress returns from recess in a final legislative sprint, hundreds of essential home care workers, care consumers and supporters will come together Tuesday to march at the Capitol, escalating their demand for Congress to act swiftly and deliver on Build Back Better’s historic investment in the nation’s care economy and the women workers of all backgrounds who power it.

Essential home care workers, consumers and moms from more than a dozen states will lead a march at the Capitol to bring their demands for racial and gender justice directly to lawmakers. Carrying hand-made signs and banners reading “Time to Deliver: Pass Build Back Better Now!” marchers will walk up the National Mall to Union Square where they will rally with members of Congress to build on the infrastructure bill signing momentum and send a message that it’s time to deliver sweeping investments in working families, care workers and consumers by passing Build Back Better. 

“Home care workers like me have always shown up to serve our communities because we know that care is essential to our economy,” said Deborah McAllister, home care worker from Burgaw, NC. “We need to Build Back Better with care because care work makes all other work possible. This would be a game-changer for my family and me. It would mean I'd get paid a living wage for the 24/7 care I provide to my mother so I can afford to pay our bills in addition to basic necessities. And it would mean that care workers across our country get access to higher wages, better benefits, training opportunities and a voice on the job. Investing in care workers and people who need care is a moral and economic imperative. Congress, it’s time to deliver.” 

Build Back Better delivers game-changing relief to home care workers, raising wages and improving conditions for a 2.4 million strong workforce — 87% women and 62% people of color — and expanding care access to working parents, seniors, people with disabilities in need throughout the country. Not only will it expand access to care and lift up the workers who provide it, the legislation will also take major steps toward tackling the climate crisis, expanding paid leave and child care support for families, protecting immigrants, lowering everyday costs and creating good-paying, union jobs. 

 

EVENT DETAILS

WHAT: March and rally at the Capitol to demand urgent passage of Build Back Better

WHO: 

Essential home care workers from over a dozen states

Care consumers

SEIU

National Domestic Workers Alliance

MomsRising

National Women’s Law Center

Paid Leave for All

Black Women’s Roundtable

ADAPT

Caring Across Generations

Members of Congress

 

WHEN AND WHERE: Tuesday, November 16

8:45AM ET — March (Route), begins on the National Mall by the National Museum of the American Indian (Corner of 4th Street SW & Jefferson SW in Washington D.C.) and ends at Union Square. 

10AM ET — Rally at Union Square in Washington, D.C

VISUALS AND SET UP: 

March set up: Kick off at stage. Marchers decked out in branded t-shirts, masks, and hats will carry hand-made signs, and banners as they encircle the Capitol building. A flatbed truck will aid those who need mobility assistance.

Rally set up: Stage with the Capitol Building background, banners, podium, amplified sound

LIVESTREAM: Available here: https://www.facebook.com/SEIU

RSVP: Please RSVP to Tian.Weinberg@berlinrosen.com 

“Workers across the country are ready to Build Back Better with care, and we’re raising our voices to demand Congress deliver,” said April Verrett, President of SEIU Local 2015 and Chair of SEIU’s home care council. “Care is essential to bringing our country forward and reshaping our economy. Only by passing the Build Back Better Act can Congress ensure a more equitable economy, especially for the Black, Latina, white, Asian American Pacific Islander, Indigenous and immigrant women hit hardest by the pandemic. It’s time to deliver for workers, working families, seniors and people with disabilities by bringing these historic investments in home and community care, support for child care, paid leave, and all our communities.” 

"We are on the verge of passing legislation that would help secure an equitable future for women of color by enabling millions of us to return to work, providing livable wages for care work, and ensuring our loved ones can access the care services they need,” National Domestic Workers Alliance and Caring Across Generations Executive Director Ai-jen Poo said. “It’s time for Congress to deliver President Biden and Speaker Pelosi’s promise to provide that relief to millions of people in our country. There is no better way to honor the essential contributions of care workers and family caregivers during this National Caregivers Month than to take a historic step in providing the material support they need."

“Moms and families are counting on Congress to build the care infrastructure we so urgently need by voting to pass the Build Back Better Act without delay,’ said Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, Executive Director and CEO of MomsRising. "Build Back Better will lower costs, create jobs, raise wages, enable parents and caregivers to work, cut child care costs in half for most families, provide four weeks of paid family and medical leave, reduce the number of children living in poverty, expand home-based services for older people and those with disabilities, improve our health care system, create a path to citizenship for immigrant workers, and more. We are proud to stand with the Service Employees International Union in urging Congress to immediately pass the Build Back Better Act, which will finally build the care infrastructure working people, families, and our economy need. Care really can’t wait!”  

Care Workers to Take to the Streets in National Blitz

Tuesday’s show of force on the Capitol will come amid a flurry of “Build Back Better for Care” actions as home care workers in Maine, Michigan, and New York take to streets in the days leading up to the march to push for higher wages, stronger benefits, a voice on the job, and to expand care access to millions.

Rallies will sweep into Georgia, New Hampshire, and Arizona, where Thursday, home care workers, consumers, allies and state electeds will gather in Tucson giving a ‘thumbs up’ to the city’s $15 minimum wage victory while calling attention to the swift action needed from Arizona’s Congressional delegation to pass the Build Back Better agenda.

Scores of workers, consumers, and advocates have mobilized for months to champion Congress’s landmark investment in reshaping the care industry. From taking to the streets in 20 cities, to town halls and rallies in over a dozen states, to op-eds published across the country, workers and consumers continue to build momentum for passage in the final weeks of the legislative session. 

Build Back Better’s Historic Investment in Home Care

Home care is the nation’s fastest-growing job sector. The U.S. will need to fill an estimated 4.7 million home care jobs, including over one million new jobs, by 2028. That’s on top of an already massive shortage of care workers—approximately 20 million Americans currently require long term care—and that number is on the rise. An investment in home- and community-based services would help meet the ballooning demand for care and establish a pipeline of home care workers into the next generation by transforming care jobs into good, living-wage, union jobs with training opportunities and real career pathways.

Especially as the population continues to age, the nation needs more home care workers and needs to  ensure that they are paid a living wage. Roughly 10,000 people turn 65 each day. 

The home care workforce is composed of 87 percent women and 62 percent people of color. A federal investment in home-and community-based care would serve as the first-ever targeted jobs program for women and women of color—the very workers who have been hardest hit by the economic recession, and who have for far too long been locked out of basic labor rights and protections, as well as economic opportunity, as a result of systemic racism. This plan has the potential to put a majority-women-of-color workforce at the center of our economic recovery and create the union, living-wage jobs of the future.

Poll after poll has found a vast majority of voters across party lines supporting the proposed expansion of home- and community-based services. 

###

Service Employees International Union

SEIU home care workers in the #CareCantWait coalition have come together on tele-town halls attended by tens of thousands of workers, for lobby days with members of Congress, and for local protests, marches, speakouts, car caravans and vigils elevating home care workers' demand that Congress pass a robust package to create new care jobs and transform them into good, union jobs that pay at least $15/hour. Workers have met with dozens of Senators and Representatives, published dozens of op-eds, and in July, over 10,000 care workers, consumers, partners and advocates took their demands for a federal investment in the care economy to the streets in a nationwide day of action across more than 20 cities. 

National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) 

NDWA is the leading voice for dignity and fairness for millions of domestic workers in the United States. Founded in 2007, NDWA works for respect, recognition and inclusion in labor protections for domestic workers, the majority of whom are immigrants and women of color. NDWA is powered by over 70 affiliate organizations and local chapters and by a growing membership base of nannies, house cleaners and care workers in over 20 states. NDWA has created Alia, an online platform to help domestic workers access benefits, not otherwise granted to them, in addition to introducing a National Domestic Workers Bill of Rights with now-Vice President Kamala Harris and Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal in 2019. Learn more at www.domesticworkers.org. 

MomsRising

MomsRising.org is an on-the-ground and online grassroots organization of more than a million people who are working to increase family economic security, stop discrimination against women and moms, and build a nation where businesses and families can thrive. Established in 2006, MomsRising and its members organize and speak out to improve public policy and change the national dialogue on issues that are critically important to America’s families. MomsRising maintains a Spanish language website: MamásConPoder.org. Sign up online at www.MomsRising.org — and follow us on our blog, and on Twitter and Facebook