RSS Feed
August 19th, 2017 
Awake Goy But Calvo also works as home health care worker, making just $10 an hour. Her company, Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA), is not like most other companies. It is a worker cooperative, an ownership structure that is somewhat rare in the U.S. but much more common in Spain, Italy, and parts of Latin America. In a worker cooperative, every worker can own an equal share of the company (and its profits) and get a say in company decisions.
Today, worker co-ops are growing in popularity in the U.S., both for people ideologically drawn to an equitable workplace and as a means for economically disadvantaged people to control their own destiny. But among worker cooperatives, CHCA is rare in for its size (employing over 2,000 workers), its longevity (currently in its 30th year), and its success (it has been profitable in all but three of those years).
Unlike other corporations, CHCA’s workers get a say in important decisions: Eight of its 12 board members are home health care aides, the company’s front line workers. That board makes major decisions just like in other corporations, such as hiring the company’s president. When Michael Elsas, CHCA’s current president and a veteran of the home health care industry was interviewed by the board, he says he was shocked.
“That interview was horrifying for me,” says Elsas. “After 25 years in the home care industry, it was the first time I was interviewed for a job by home care workers. I didn’t know how to act.”
“THEY’RE SEEN AS AN EXPENDABLE WORKFORCE.”
Now in his 15th year at CHCA, Elsas has seen the industry from many sides. “Most agencies don’t care about the workers in this industry,” says Elsas. “Nobody cares about their benefits. Nobody cares about how much you train them. They’re seen as an expendable workforce.”
Home care workers are near the bottom of the medical hierarchy: beneath doctors, pharmacists, and nurses; beneath technicians, and beneath medical assistants. Because of the little training required–as few as 75 hours to be certified–others in the field tend to look down on them. And yet, these aides do some of the most intimate and physically demanding work imaginable. They care for our elderly and disabled, assisting with daily tasks that people can no longer perform for themselves, like cooking, dressing, and even bathing and using the bathroom.
Source Article from https://popularresistance.org/inside-americas-largest-worker-run-business/
Posted in 
Tags: 
