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92 Minn. L. Rev. 1390 (2007-2008)
The Publicization of Home-Based Care Work in State Labor Law

handle is hein.journals/mnlr92 and id is 1402 raw text is: Article The Publicization of Home-Based Care Work in State Labor Law Peggie R. Smitht Home-based care workers have experienced a labor meta- morphism of sorts over the last decade. The workers, most of whom are women,1 care for children and the elderly from with- in the private sphere of the home in exchange for compensa- tion.2 Once invisible and ignored, they have become darlings of the labor movement. While they have not halted the persistent decline in union density, they have helped to reinvigorate orga- nized labor. The transformation first attracted national atten- tion in 1999 when the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) won the right to represent 74,000 home care workers in Los Angeles, California.3 The victory marked the largest in- crease since 1941 in new union membership resulting from a single union election.4 Six years later, SEIU charted new terri- tory once again when more than 49,000 family child care pro- viders in Illinois voted overwhelmingly to join the union.5 The t Professor of Law, University of Iowa, College of Law. J.D., Harvard Law School, 1993; M.A., Yale University, 1990; B.A., Yale University, 1987. For helpful comments and suggestions during the writing of this Article, I wish to thank Rafael Gely and Margaret Raymond. The research for this Ar- ticle was supported by an appointment at the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Iowa. Copyright © 2008 by Peggie R. Smith. 1. Ninety percent of all nursing home aides and home care aides are women. Rhonda J.V. Montgomery et al., A Profile of Home Care Workers from the 2000 Census: How It Changes What We Know, 45 GERONTOLOGIST 593, 595 (2005). 2. See infra notes 14-16 and accompanying text (defining family child care and home care). 3. Linda Delp & Katie Quan, Homecare Worker Organizing in California: An Analysis of a Successful Strategy, 27 LAB. STUD. J. 1, 2 (2002). 4. Id.; Stu Schneider, Victories for Home Health Care Workers, DOLLARS & SENSE, Sept.-Oct. 2003, at 25, 26. 5. Peggie R. Smith, Welfare, Child Care, and the People Who Care: Union Representation of Family Child Care Providers, 55 KAN. L. REV. 321, 321 (2007). 1390

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