Opinion: The Youngkin-Sears administration doesn’t care about us

In March, the Youngkin-Sears administration vetoed commonsense bills that would allow hard-working Virginians to do more than just survive.

They rejected bills that would raise the minimum wage, establish paid leave for Virginia workers, promote the retention of incumbent, experienced service workers, and give frontline public employees, including home care workers, the freedom to collectively bargain for better working conditions. 

They sided with billionaires and big corporations over working people by striking down legislation that would build a stronger economy for all workers across the commonwealth. Clearly, they do not care about us.

The view from a Richmond home care worker

My name is Joyce Barnes. I’ve been a home care worker for over 30 years in Richmond, and I live paycheck to paycheck. Despite working hard, I often have no money left over at the end of the month for groceries, but I keep fighting. I’m a proud member of SEIU Virginia 512, and for years now, I’ve been fighting with my union family for better pay and benefits for care workers, and better care for the aging adults and people with disabilities we serve.  

We have won meaningful improvements over the years, and yet Virginia families still struggle to find the care workers their loved ones need because of the low pay and lack of benefits. Collective bargaining would give us a seat at the table to negotiate and is the only way to win the quality home care system that would help care workers and the people we care for live with dignity and respect. 

However, Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed the bills that would have given first responders, educators, and home care workers like me the freedom to bargain collectively. Virginia families deserve better. 

A Woodbridge senior struggles after being laid off

My name is Carlos Duran, and like my union sister Joyce, I work hard but still struggle with the high cost of living in Woodbridge. My life has been turned upside down after I was laid off last year after 35 years on the job. 

My previous employer only gave me one week’s notice that a new cleaning company was coming in. When that happens, the new company can keep the previous employees or hire new people at lower wages without benefits to pocket more profits. The new company hired me, but fired me after only a few days of work. My life, and the lives of other service workers, could be entirely different if Gov. Youngkin had not vetoed the Worker Retention bill, which would’ve allowed local governments to give low-wage service workers a transition period to find a new job.

These greedy corporations don’t care that, for my family, this job was the backbone of our income, and losing it has been incredibly hard. I now struggle to put food on the table and pay the mortgage. There have been many times since I’ve lost my job that I’ve skipped meals and gone hungry because there isn’t enough money. At 63 years old, I face the added burden of age discrimination, and finding work that pays enough to cover my bills feels nearly impossible.

Worker retention protections, paid leave, and a higher minimum wage would help us have good union jobs that we could live on. However, Youngkin vetoed all of these bills, as well. His administration sent a clear message: they don’t value people who work every day to care for our communities. These decisions show where their priorities lie—filling the pockets of corporations at the expense of working families.

But we’re not giving up. Workers like us, who have built Virginia through our blood, sweat, and tears, who support our communities and care for our neighbors, can not be held down. We’ll continue to organize, fight for better wages, job security, and the ability to collectively bargain. We’ll continue to advocate for dignity and respect for all workers, no matter where they live or where they come from. 

The Youngkin-Sears administration chose corporate profits over people with their vetoes this year. Virginians deserve a governor who will sign these bills into law and build a stronger economy for all people. We trust that Abigail Spanberger will be the leader for the working people of Virginia, and that is why our SEIU brothers and sisters have endorsed her to become the next governor of Virginia.