You Take Care of Everyone. Who Takes Care of You?

Human services work is mission-driven by definition: supporting adults with disabilities, staffing residential programs, keeping community agencies running. The people who do this work are told constantly how essential they are — and paid as though they aren't. Burnout, chronic understaffing, mandatory overtime, and poverty-level wages aren't the price of a caring career. They're the result of workers not yet having a seat at the table.

Organizing in the non-profit sector works, and it doesn't have to conflict with the mission — it protects it. NEJB human services members negotiate wage floors that reduce turnover, safe staffing language, paid time off that makes the work sustainable, and a formal voice in decisions that affect both workers and the people they serve. Agencies with stable, fairly paid staff deliver better care. A union contract is a retention plan, a safety plan, and a quality-of-care plan in one document.

If you're already an NEJB member in human services, your contract and member resources are here. If you work at a non-union agency and love the work but can't afford to stay in it, that's exactly the problem organizing solves. Talk to us — confidentially — about what a union would mean for your workplace and your clients.