��ɫֱ�� sociologist explores homecare workers' capacity to avoid coercive labour conditions

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 22 Nov 2023 15:00:55 +0000

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 11/22/2023 - 10:00

Cutline

(photo by Vecteezy)

��ɫֱ�� Mississauga staff

Topic

Breaking Research

Global

Research & Innovation

Sociology

��ɫֱ�� Mississauga

United States

Subheadline

Researchers examined the impact of California’s in-home support service program on homecare providers' ability to advocate for themselves

How much power do homecare workers have to resist being exploited by their employers?

For Asian women working in this occupation in California, the answer is shaped by several factors, including filial obligations, cultural traditions, language barriers, economic status, state employment regulations, labour unions, immigrant organizations and disability rights groups.

Cynthia Cranford, a professor of sociology at the ��ɫֱ�� Mississauga, examines this complex subject in a new study published in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.

Cynthia Cranford (supplied image)

Cranford joined scholars from the University of California, Florida Atlantic University and Brown University to analyze how the inequalities of gender, race, class and immigration shape these workers’ ability to refuse coercive labour conditions.

Their investigation, funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Grant, also examined the role of California’s in-home support service (IHSS) state-funded care program in enabling and inhibiting self-advocacy by care providers.

“The state, in the design of its program, opens the door for homecare workers to slip into servitude,” says Cranford, author of the 2020 book Home Care Fault Lines: Understanding Tensions and Creating Alliances. “How can they collectivize and access supports within their community to navigate these situations?”

The situations to which Cranford is referring were illuminated through interviews with 60 homecare providers. They include:

Being expected to work unpaid overtime and serve members of their family
Being subjected to verbal abuse
Being accused of stealing
Having food thrown at them.

The interviews were arranged with the help of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and three partnering community organizations: Asian Immigrant Women Advocates, the Filipino American Services Group and the Pilipino Workers Center of Southern California.

As Cranford notes, the IHSS program in California, which employs more than 500,000 homecare providers, stands out as a model in the U.S. for empowering homecare workers who are members of the SEIU with the right to engage in collective bargaining for fair wages and benefits.

Yet, the authors note the union limits its interventions in cases of homecare worker mistreatment. Due to concessions it has made to disability rights groups, it does not engage in workplace strikes that could jeopardize the health and well-being of people who need continuous care.

As well, they write, the IHSS program grants employers full autonomy over the hiring, firing and supervising of homecare workers, taking a “hands-off approach to regulating employment conditions in homecare,” which leaves workers vulnerable to inhumane treatment.

The IHSS program allows for spouses, parents, children and other relatives to be paid care providers. While it is beneficial for a relative to be paid for work that they might normally perform for free out of a sense of family duty, Cranford and her colleagues found that family dynamics often contribute to a sense of “unfreedom” since they create expectations to perform extra tasks beyond their paid hours, and threats of firing for non-compliance.

This issue is exacerbated by California’s insufficient resourcing of the program, they say, as those who receive care often need funding for more care hours than allotted by the program. Other mitigating factors include the ethno-cultural expectation of female servitude among older care receivers, and the financial precariousness and limited English proficiency of some care providers.

Yet, as the authors note, many of the homecare workers they interviewed found ways to respond to their dilemmas of servitude. Taking advantage of what few supports their union offers, they have engaged in grassroots community organizing to cultivate group solidarity among homecare workers, sought help when facing unreasonable demands at work in order to improve working conditions and sometimes resorted to blacklisting abusive employers.

Some also connected with local immigrant organizations to help advocate for their rights.

“These women are confronting servitude in multiple ways, and when they have collective support from their unions and other community groups, they are capable of confronting it,” Cranford says.

In photos: Tipi and teaching lodge raised at ��ɫֱ�� Mississauga

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 18 Sep 2023 13:16:33 +0000

In photos: Tipi and teaching lodge raised at ��ɫֱ�� Mississauga

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 09/18/2023 - 09:16

Cutline

David Lundberg inspects a partially completed teaching lodge at ��ɫֱ�� Mississauga (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

��ɫֱ�� Mississauga staff

Topic

Our Community

Indigenous

��ɫֱ�� Mississauga

A new Tipi and teaching lodge at the ��ɫֱ�� Mississauga can be found nestled in a quiet spot among the trees just off Principal’s Road.

The two structures were recently raised by students, staff, faculty and librarians as part of the UTM Indigenous Centre’s student orientation event. Creating spaces that are reflective of Indigenous community is one of the many ways the Office of Indigenous Initiatives at ��ɫֱ�� Mississauga is working to mobilize reconciliation on campus.

The Tipi, which is expected to remain on site for two years, will be used for ceremonies, programming, events and classes, while the larger lodge will be used as a teaching space.

��ɫֱ�� Mississauga photographer Nick Iwanyshyn was on hand to capture how the project came together.

(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Volunteers raise the wooden structure of the Tipi, placing one wooden beam in place after another to form a spiral.

(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Volunteers prepare to add the Tipi cover to the structure.

(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Doug Lu, web content strategist with ��ɫֱ�� Mississauga's Office of Communications, helps stake the Tipi cover in place.

(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

The Tipi will be used for ceremonies, programming, events and classes.

(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Smyrna Wright, community engagement co-ordinator with the Centre for Student Engagement, helps her fellow volunteers build the lodge structure.

(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Volunteers tie the wooden poles of the teaching lodge together.

(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Jessica Tabak, special projects officer with ��ɫֱ�� Mississauga's Office of Indigenous Initiatives, helps attach the outer canvas to the walls of the teaching lodge.

(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

The lodge, which is larger than the Tipi, will be used as a teaching space. It is equipped with a wood stove to provide heat during the winter months.