Workforce standards board could raise the tide for all workers

Home care workers have a difficult job with low pay, poor benefits and tough working conditions. (Getty Images)

When an industry sees three-quarters of its workers leave their employers in a single year, something is seriously wrong. And that’s what Oregon witnessed in 2022 among home care workers — those who feed, bathe and otherwise care for seniors and people with disabilities so that they can continue living in their homes.

The high turnover rate among home care workers is no great mystery. It’s what happens when a difficult job comes with low pay , poor benefits and tough working conditions .

Home care workers and the broader category of direct care workers are a crucial part of the workforce, and their importance will only grow in the years to come, as Oregon’s population ages.

So what can Oregon do to make direct care more appealing? It could consider establishing a workforce standards board.

A workforce standards board is a public body that would be created by the Legislature to help set minimum wages and working conditions for an entire industry. These boards usually consist of workers, employers and public officials or members of the public.

Some boards have the power to set the rules in an industry, while others make recommendations to the Legislature. Either way, workforce standards boards have proven to be effective ways to improve pay and working conditions across an industry, bypassing the usual challenges that arise when seeking to organize one workplace at a time.

The benefits of a workforce standards board can be seen in Nevada. Much like in Oregon, Nevada’s home care workers were quitting in droves, with one in two leaving after just one year on the job. Then the COVID pandemic struck, exposing the homecare industry’s inadequate training and other shortcomings.

So Nevada’s workers demanded the creation of a workforce standards board , and the Legislature agreed. Subsequently, the recommendations of the Nevada Home Care Workforce Board helped persuade lawmakers to raise the minimum wage for home care workers. In an industry where the average wage had languished around $11 an hour, workers gained a wage floor of $16 per hour.

Workforce standards boards are not just good for workers and their families; they can be good for businesses too. By setting better pay and working conditions,  standards boards can lead to a more stable, productive workforce less prone to turnover. Also, setting and raising workforce standards helps responsible businesses. For example, it eliminates the incentive for businesses to misclassify workers as independent contractors — a practice that can undercut honest employers by reducing labor costs.

Some in the labor movement may worry whether, in delivering tangible gains for workers, workforce standards boards lessen the urgency for workers to unionize. But the evidence does not bear out that understandable concern.

By requiring all companies in an industry to abide by the same minimum wages and working conditions, standards boards reduce the opportunity of nonunion firms to undercut unionized firms . Thus, there is less incentive for employers to push back against union drives.

Also, the formation of a workforce standards board would create the need to inform workers about the board’s work and help them participate in the process, such as testifying before the board — a need which unions are in the best position to fill. Thus, the creation of the board itself can be a catalyst for organizing.

Research shows that countries with industry-level standard setting have higher union membership than countries with only workplace-level bargaining. That’s the case in Sweden, Britain and other countries with higher union density than the U.S.

In 2023, the Oregon Legislature considered a bill to create a board to address the high turnover in the long-term care industry, a situation reflecting the industry’s low pay and poor working conditions. Although the bill died that session, the idea remains very much alive.

Workforce standards boards can lift the tide for all workers in an industry. It’s a proven strategy that state lawmakers should employ to improve the economic security of Oregonians.