Labor politics are at the center of a debate over collective bargaining.
Lauralyn Clark is a home care worker whose client lived with her until she had a stroke, so that was a month without pay. Then her client needed rehab. So, that was another month with no pay. So, she and her client were both evicted.
"The system failed us both. I lost my home, and she had nowhere to go. That is the reality of this work without real protection," Clark says. "You are always one crisis away from losing everything, which I did."
If Clark was able to engage in collective bargaining, she might not have gone all those months without any source of income. That's why she's so excited about legislation currently under consideration that would expand the availability of collective bargaining to her and to people like Ian Mullins, a professor at the University of Virginia who is also part of the Campus Workers of Virginia.
"And those of us who work at UVA, we want a seat at the table. We want a more democratic form of governance of this institution," Mullins says. "As we showed you last fall, we can organize, we can resist a rogue BOV. And we're still here, and they're not."
Legislation allowing collective bargaining for home care workers, university workers and local government employees could be considered as early as this week.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
