Domestic workers groups including We Dream in Black, Fe y Justicia, Misma, National Domestic Workers Alliance, AFL-CIO, Restaurant Workers Union, OPEIU, Workers Defense Fund, with the coordination and support of Every Texan, asked PACT and ADAPT to join their rally for better wages and benefits for direct care workers and more. Others spoke movingly about domestic workers, child care and nanny’s, housekeepers and other domestics workers some of whom had been paid as low as $2 per hour. PACT organizer Cathy Cranston showed her beautiful passion as she spoke about our decades long battle to raise Medicaid attendants wages.

the House and Senate have passed their budgets and now are in conference committee to finalize the budget for the state for 2024 through 2025. We are supporting the Senate version because it raises attendant wages over 40%. It’s not $15 per hour but it will still be a huge jump for the millions of attendants in Texas. Call your legislators and tell them this is a critical raise or we won’t have attendants at all in 2 years; after all we a facing a crisis right now!

It is ironic that the same legislators who are crowing about this significant wage hike are the same ones who have kept the wages so depressed for so long. None the less it is important we all let our legislators know we support the Senate version of the budget for our issue. Let them hear from you!