Members and staff from SEIU 503 were part of a group of SEIU locals that traveled to Las Vegas this month to organize homecare workers in Nevada for better wages and working conditions. Pay for workers averages only $11 an hour, and staff have no benefits such as vacation, sick pay, or health insurance. It was hard work, but in the end, SEIU members and staff who made the trip said they were able to find broad support for unionizing homecare workers everywhere they went.  

“Some days we faced uphill battles and we felt completely defeated, but that did NOT stop us from waking up the next day more eager and driven to keep getting those one-on-one conversations with homecare providers,” said SEIU 503 member leader Renae Hill.   

The grass-roots campaign involved knocking on doors and collecting union authorization cards from homecare workers, no easy task given the high turnover rate in the sector. The efforts to unionize homecare workers in Nevada will continue.