During the 2012 International AIDS Conference in July, ACT UP activists protested U.S. HIV/AIDS policies, including the PEPFAR anti-prostitution pledge.(Michael Fleshman / Flickr / Creative Commons)

Originally posted at In These Times

One of the few bright spots in the global response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic has been PEPFAR, the United States government’s program to fund treatment and prevention for vulnerable populations across the Global South. But several years ago, lawmakers singled out one group of people as less worthy of that care. In fact, aid groups must publicly denounce them—or risk losing U.S. funding.

That’s the basic idea behind the “anti-prostitution loyalty oath” embedded in the global AIDS initiative legislation. As a condition of receiving federal funds, organizations must adhere to avaguely worded anti-prostitution pledge, essentially swearing to the government that they do not support or promote prostitution. The extent of this restriction on their work is unclear; the only thing that is clear is that federal health authorities have sought to impose ideological views on aid workers in a way that could undermine both public health and organizations’ free speech rights.

The policy has been blocked on constitutional grounds in lower court decisions, but the White House will now take the case to the Supreme Court, which will rule later this year on the question of whether the government can link support for U.S. health organizations to the adoption of certain ideological positions on prostitution. Read the rest of this entry →

Caring Across Generations via flickr

Cross-posted from In These Times

After years of working a thankless job, more than 1,500 home healthcare aides in New York got some long overdue recognition this week, along with a $1 million paycheck in a landmark legal settlement.

The lawsuit involved home health aides working for a private provider of care to seniors and people with disabilities in New York City. The main allegations centered on a typical problem in the home care workforce–getting shorted on wages and overtime pay, thanks to huge gaps in labor protections. McMillan’s Home Care Agency, according to the suit, “consistently underpaid its workers and never paid overtime, despite frequently working more than 60 hours per week.”

Although the settlement deals with New York state labor laws, which offer more protection for this sector than federal labor standards, the mistreatment of these workers sheds light on a national problem. Many home health workers nationwide don’t earn enough to survive and are denied meaningful protections for minimum wage and overtime under both federal and state law.

The settlement awards the workers in the class-action suit with just over $1 million, divided up according to the number of unpaid overtime hours worked. Going forward, the settlement also prohibits the for-profit company from retaliating against workers who speak up about wage and hour violations.

According to the National Employment Law Project, one of the groups leading the litigation, the workers represent just a tiny percentage of the 250,000-strong home care workforce in New York state, but it could compel employers across the sector to take labor protections more seriously. That is good news as the sector might need to expand by an estimated 100,000 workers in the next decade to keep pace with demand for services, according to an analysis by PHI New York. Read the rest of this entry →

Cross-posted from In These Times

Image: Kaiser RNs One-Day Sympathy Strike to Support Other Kaiser Caregivers (ProtestIntheUSA.org)

It’s a universal health care frustration: the emergency room. Endless waits and doctors who treat patients like products on an assembly line. A new study confirms the exasperation: A large portion of patients believe they’re being treated poorly by an overstretched system.

According to the survey, conducted by National Public Radio, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health, about one in every three patients, who spent at least one night in a hospital in the past year, reported that “nurses weren’t available when needed or didn’t respond quickly to requests for help.” Though only a minority reported being dissatisfied overall, many respondents felt the hospital’s traditional frontline staff hadn’t given them adequate attention.

But what’s behind the numbers? In NPR’s informal follow-up Facebook poll, nurses sounded every bit as vexed as the patients:

We received hundreds of responses and read them all: piles of stories about nurses feeling overworked, getting no breaks, no lunches and barely enough time to go to the bathroom. Even worse, many nurses say breaks and lunchtimes are figured into their salaries and deducted, whether they take them or not.

Many nurses were reluctant to speak on the record, fearing their bosses’ reaction. One nurse reflected the sense of tension and helplessness at work: Read the rest of this entry →

"Pill" by Beppie K on flickr

Cross-posted from In These Times.

Washington’s Old Boys’ club still has its knickers in a wad over the deficit “compromise,” but women across the country can breathe a slight sigh of relief this week. The White House just issued health reform guidelines that will mandate insurance plans to provide birth control to women at no extra cost. The measure is long overdue, part of an array of preventive services recommended by the Institute of Medicine for improving women’s health. But the promise of broader contraceptive access coincides fittingly with the debate over the nation’s budget woes, because birth control is an economic issue.

Consider how essential birth control is for working women. When women can control whether and how many children they bear, they can delay pregnancy until they feel they’re ready, and in the meantime focus on career goals, finishing school, paying off that mortgage or signing divorce papers. The “choice” in reproductive choice refers not only to her ovaries—despite the right-wing scaremongering about unfettered female sexuality—it’s about every choice in life affected by pregnancy and sex.

At the height of the economic crisis, the costs of family planning grew more severe, as did the consequences of having to forgo it. According to a 2009 study by the Guttmacher Institute:

Overall, 29% of surveyed women agree with the statement, “With the economy the way it is, I am more careful than I used to be about using contraception every time I have sex.” Those who are financially worse off are more likely than others to agree with this statement (39% vs. 19%).

The same economic dilemma ironically creates barriers to contraceptive care. Eight percent reported sometimes skipping birth control “in order to save money,” and this was “more common among those who are financially worse off.” Read the rest of this entry →