Issued July 21, 2020
San Francisco, CA- Today, SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry released the following statement in response to Vice President Joe Biden’s announcement of his plan to create a 21st century caregiving and education workforce. As America’s largest caregivers union, SEIU represents 825,000 caregivers across the country in home care and childcare.
“In Joe Biden’s America, we care for each other - our loved ones and those who care for them. With his impressive caregiving and education workforce plan, Joe Biden made history by prioritizing America’s caregivers, predominantly Black and brown women, for the value they provide in our families’ daily lives and in making our economy run. Valuing care and prioritizing the vital relief that America’s working families need is something President Trump does not care about.
“By investing in caregiving as essential social infrastructure, and making caregiving jobs good union jobs, Joe Biden will lead our country into a more inclusive economic recovery that puts families first and allows them to do their jobs with the comfort that their loved ones--children, parents, grandparents and family members with disabilities--have the care they need.
“Biden understands that to truly recover as a nation, we can’t go back to the way things were before where families were struggling to access and afford quality home care and child care and America’s caregivers weren’t receiving the pay, benefits, and ability to join a union to care for their own families and have a voice at work. Biden’s plan will heal and boost our economy by putting three million people to work in new care and education jobs and improving the quality of existing care jobs with better pay and protections including the ability for millions to join a union. When caregivers have the ability to join together in unions, they can better advocate for themselves and the services they provide for those they care for.
“Biden’s plan for our nation’s caregiving workforce, predominantly Black and brown women, begins to address the systemic racist and sexist exclusion care workers have always suffered in our economy. With this plan, Biden is ensuring that Black, brown, Asian Pacific Islander and white care workers finally have the same protections, including the basic right to join together in unions, that all workers deserve.
“Biden will invest in public health and create new, community health worker jobs, a forward-thinking plan to help address the racial disparities in our healthcare system that the COVID crisis has laid bare.
“For Black, Latino and other families of color, who live in multigenerational families, Biden’s plan will provide essential access to affordable quality home care. Biden’s plan will also make key investments in women and workers of color with more than more than half of our nation’s homecare workers being women of color and with jobs that are increasingly being filled with immigrant and Latino workers.
"With this plan, Joe Biden has shown America’s essential workers that he will do what is essential for them and the people they serve. SEIU’s two million essential workers are mobilizing, organizing, traditionally and digitally, and are all in to elect Joe Biden in November.”