Personal Care Attendant Quality
Home Care Workforce Council
One Ashburton Place, Room 1109
Boston, MA  02108 

DEVAL L. PATRICK
Governor

TIMOTHY P. MURRAY
Lieutenant Governor

JUDYANN BIGBY, M.D.
Secretary

Tel.:  617-573-1786
Fax:  617-573-1890
www.mass.gov/eohhs

Personal Care Attendant Quality Home Care Workforce Council
 
One Ashburton Place
Boston, MA 02108

  Council Meeting – Executive Session

Minutes	August 12, 2008	 	21st floor, Conference Room 3	
 	
CoUNCIL  members in attendance	Joe Bellil,  Liz Casey, Paul Spooner, Larry Braman, Eileen Brewster, Joe Tringali (telephonically)	
 Staff attending	Jack Boesen, Michelle Byrd, Karen Langley	
coUNCIL  Chair	 Paul Spooner, Vice-Chair	
Note taker	Michelle Byrd	

The Council’s Executive Session began at 2:52 p.m.

Report and recommendation of the Procurement Management Team on the RFR for the PCA Referral Directory
 Jack Boesen and Karen Langley reported on the Procurement Management Team’s recommendation to the Council for the selection of a company to begin developing a PCA referral directory.  On August 11th, the PMT, consisting of Anita Albright, Karen Langley, Rachel Richards, Barbara Lybarger and Jack Boesen, met and unanimously agreed to enter into negotiations with Rewarding Work Resources, a company selected to develop a PCA referral directory.  Karen Langley asked the Council to accept the recommendation of the PMT and proceed with development of a statement of work with the company. The PMT further recommended that explicit performance measures be outlined in the statement of work including affirmative statements from the company regarding their ability to comply with Massachusetts accessibility requirements and provide appropriate validation.  The current council budget has approximately $270,000 set aside for first year non-recurring start up costs.  $200,000 of that is the PAC funding.  An estimate from the company for on-going maintenance of the Directory is $165,000/year.  This will be reviewed and the yearly maintenance cost will be factored into the FY10 council budget request. Paul Spooner asked about the time-line for the development of the directory.  Jack reported that at this time we could expect to have the directory on-line by April or May of 2009.

Collective Bargaining

Douglas Shatkin updated Council members on unresolved issues surrounding collective bargaining since the Fall River negotiations.  He reported that the collective bargaining members and SEIU were able to come to agreement on salary, paid time off and health benefits, however, the current language of Article 4 of the agreement regarding deductions of union dues and/or agency fees without signature authorization is still unresolved.

A legislative amendment was vetoed by the Governor which would have allowed agency fees to be deducted from PCA’s without their signed authorization if they failed to designate their intention to join the union or agree to pay an agency fee. 

The next collective bargaining meeting is scheduled for August 20th.  At this time there is a proposal that the Council prepare a communication to PCA’s about this issue and encourage them to be proactive in selecting an option to pay union dues or agency fees.

Liz Casey asked how other states have handled this issue.  Jack Boesen reiterated that joining the union cannot be a condition of employment here in Massachusetts, and he informed Liz that this would apply to new hires.  The primary problem is with existing PCA’s. Liz asked for comments from other council members on how they felt as consumers taking a role in obtaining signatures.  Larry Braman felt that it would not be a problem because it is tied to salary increases for PCA’s.    

A motion was made to leave executive session by Joe Bellil and was seconded by Larry Braman and passed unanimously. The council came out of executive session at 3:54 p.m.