Doug McCrory

Sen. McCrory Approves Raises For Long-Denied Health Care Workers

State Senator Doug McCrory (D-Hartford) joined a bipartisan vote in the state Senate today that gives thousands of unionized health care workers their first pay raise in over a decade – and avoids a harmful strike at the same time.

Sen. McCrory joined a bipartisan 29-4 Senate vote on House Bill 5460 to give about 2,500 members of the SEIU 1199 labor union a raise of up to 5 percent beginning January 1, 2019. The workers staff about 170 group homes in Connecticut that care for physically and developmentally disabled state residents.

The workers now earn an average hourly wage of $14.19 an hour – about $30,000 a year – which is less than half the average household income in Connecticut. They have not received a cost of living adjustment since 2004.

“I’m happy to stand today in support of a pay raise for thousands of hardworking health care workers who have one of the hardest jobs in Connecticut: caring for folks with disabilities. It’s a job a lot of us couldn’t do. Some of these people have been working 12, 14 hour days for years,” Sen. McCrory said. “These are the parents you never see at the PTO meetings, or at the school play, or the sporting event, because they’re busy working, trying to put food on the table, keeping a roof over their heads. But I see them in church, I talk to them in the grocery store. They told me how important this bill is to them So today I’m giving back, and saying thank you, giving them a pay raise for all the hard work that they do.”

The state House of Representatives had passed the same bill earlier in the week on a 88-62 vote, with just nine Republicans joining all Democrats to vote in favor. The bill now heads to the governor for his signature.