Overview
Please join us as we present findings from a two-year research project that explores private equity’s incursion into home care in New York State, its relationship to structural racism and how agency structure shapes working conditions, worker voice and what this means for quality of care. Given what we already know about the poor pay and working conditions that home care workers face—and the fact that these jobs are disproportionately held by women of color—the presentation of findings will highlight the ways private equity exacerbates these already challenging working conditions—thus reinforcing structural racism. Our findings will then show how changes in work quality can affect home care workers’ ability to provide high-quality care to their patients.
While private equity’s acquisition of hospitals and nursing homes and the subsequent harms to the quality of care and jobs have been well documented, the relatively recent presence of private equity in home care has been less examined. The presentation of findings will be followed by a panel discussion with representatives from unions, advocacy groups and policymakers to discuss the implications of these findings. This will include recommendations for how best to curb the extraction of public resources by private equity at the expense of quality home care provision, and how we can halt the exploitation of home care workers.
