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Home health care workers in Nevada are going to the state capital today to demand a raise. NPR's Andrea Hsu has the story of one caregiver taking part who took an unusual path to the profession.
ANDREA HSU, BYLINE: Regina Brown-Ross has always been a caregiver at heart.
REGINA BROWN-ROSS: For me, caring has always been a part of my life.
HSU: Growing up in Chicago, she helped her mother through bouts of illness. She took care of her sister when she was injured on the job. And a little more than a decade ago, she became a full-time caregiver for her mother-in-law, who was suffering from Alzheimer's.
BROWN-ROSS: Which developed and developed and became very difficult.
HSU: The timing just happened to work out. Before then, Brown-Ross had a whole different career as a singer.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ORANGE COLORED SKY")
BROWN-ROSS: (Singing) Flash, bam, alakazam. Wonderful you came by.
HSU: She performed old standards with jazz orchestras and sang backup for musicians like Ray Charles.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HIT THE ROAD JACK")
THE RAELETTES: (Singing) Hit the road, Jack, and don't you come back no more, no more, no more.
HSU: There she was as one of The Raelettes on the British TV show "Saturday Live" in 1996. Later, she moved to Las Vegas to sing with Gladys Knight.
BROWN-ROSS: I was at the Flamingo with her.
HSU: Then in 2011, she went to China, where she performed shows for an international audience. But there, she got sick.
BROWN-ROSS: The smog was so terrible there that it compromised my breath.
HSU: Her vocal coach told her, shut it down or lose it. She returned home, diminished, unable to sing.
BROWN-ROSS: I couldn't sing my phrases. I couldn't hold a note. It was the most devastating time for me.
HSU: Unable to tour, Brown-Ross needed another job. Back home in Las Vegas, she learned that under a state program, she could formalize taking care of her mother-in-law. She became certified as a caregiver and got hired by an agency that provides in-home care for seniors who qualify for Medicaid, but she discovered the going rate for this essential service was dismal - 10 to $12 an hour.
BROWN-ROSS: To go from working with Ray Charles and Gladys Knight making money to being a home care worker was difficult for me, that transition.
HSU: It wasn't just the low pay. It was the lack of recognition for the caregivers, mostly women and women of color, who help feed and bathe and provide for the people who can't do it all on their own.
BROWN-ROSS: They deserve to have dignity in their own profession.
HSU: Two years ago, she was invited to a meeting of the Service Employees International Union, which has organized home health care workers across the country. Soon, she found herself on the bargaining team and part of a larger fight to get the state to set a minimum wage for caregivers for the first time ever at $16 an hour. Brown-Ross phone banked and spread leaflets and spoke at a union convention.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BROWN-ROSS: And we organized our union with Local 1107.
(CHEERING)
HSU: Her decades on stage made her a natural in front of crowds. She felt energized speaking on behalf of other home caregivers.
BROWN-ROSS: Because they need a voice.
HSU: Now, two years after their first win, Brown-Ross and other caregivers are headed back to Carson City to ask for a raise.
BROWN-ROSS: We want to go to $20 an hour.
HSU: And they have leverage. The number of seniors in Nevada has soared over the past decade. Caregivers are in demand across the country. Regina Brown-Ross says this is their moment.
BROWN-ROSS: We have to continue to fight, (singing) because when we fight, we win. We will have the victory.
HSU: More than a decade after she stopped touring, Regina Brown-Ross is getting back to singing, resuming some musical projects, but she's not in a hurry. After all, she's already using her voice for a cause she deeply believes in.
Andrea Hsu, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF RAY CHARLES' "DOODLIN'") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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