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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

OR Home-Care Workers' Union Reacts to Supreme Court Decision

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Tuesday, July 1, 2014   

MEDFORD, Ore. - Home-care workers in Oregon have been carefully watching a U.S. Supreme Court case that was decided on Monday. The justices ruled 5-to-4 that home health aides working for state Medicaid clients in Illinois don't have to pay a fee to the state employees' union that represents them if they don't want to be union members.

The case, Harris versus Quinn, is seen by some as part of a larger attempt to weaken labor unions. Rebecca Sandoval, the president of Oregon's SEIU Local 503, instead sees it as an opportunity.

"We're going to use this as a challenge to prove how valuable our union is," says Sandoval. "Not just to home-care workers, but to our clients and then even further, to the state and the taxpayers of Oregon. I mean, that's exactly what this does for me. It's kind of a defining moment."

The court said as private contractors, the home health-care workers in the case shouldn't be required to pay union fees or join the union. Sandoval says it isn't clear yet how the case would affect Oregon's 20,000 state-paid home-care workers, who also are contractors.

Sandoval says home-care aides were once considered domestic workers in Oregon - paid less than minimum wage, with no benefits, training programs or career ladder. She says the annual turnover rate used to be 300 percent. Now, she says, it's 60 percent - reflecting a job that's certainly tough, but that has gained some respect through organizing and collective bargaining.

"It's pretty dramatic, from where it was to where it is," says Sandoval. "The thing that we get by having a union is a voice in how we're treated, how our clients are treated, and how the future of this program shakes out."

She adds making home-care more of a profession is one reason Oregon's long-term care system gets high marks compared to other states. Just last month, AARP and two national foundations ranked Oregon third in the nation for helping seniors and people with disabilities remain in their homes.


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