Home Care Worker

After participating in the introductory leadership training sessions to identify and analyze issues critical to homecare workers, eight homecare workers organized monthly meetings in October 2013 to explore and discuss strategies to improve their working conditions. The trainings and the committee meetings provided opportunities for home care workers to share the challenges they face at work: such as being accused of stealing, working 24 hours for $50 dollars per day, receiving verbal abuse, being compelled to clean clients’ relatives’ homes, and receiving frequent threats of termination. The committee members all agreed on the need to change the precarious and unfair nature of their working conditions. In collaboration with researchers from the University of Toronto, the members also agreed to conduct community surveys and participate in interviews. The committee will review the survey and interview findings and discuss concrete campaign strategies to improve the working conditions of homecare workers.