Between Home and State: Care Workers and Labor Strategy for the New Open-Shop Era of Trumplandia

This chapter also tackles how to build power under challenging conditions. It analyzes the case of home health care, which stands outside New Deal labor laws and is one of the largest and fastest-growing low-wage occupations. Building on decades of organizing, persistent political action, and mobilization with clients, home-care workers' unions won legislative battles enabling states to take on the role of employer and winning the right to engage in collective bargaining. But anti-union groups are now aggressively encouraging union disaffiliation through door-to-door campaigns, though home-care unions are fighting back. A critical component is deep member training and education, including “leadership academies” to cultivate workers' political education and skills. This chapter is a reminder that members make the union—with or without state recognition.