Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is not alone in bashing public employees these days.  In the view of his fellow GOP governor, Mitch Daniels from Indiana, a possible presidential candidate next year, collective bargaining has transformed civil servants into “a new privileged class.” For right-wing Republican governors and legislators, the solution to state and local government budget problems is to strip these “privileged” workers of negotiating rights while cutting their existing pay and benefits.  Meanwhile, in states like Massachusetts and New York, centrist Democrats are also seeking contract concessions and curbs on the scope of bargaining.

Teachers, social workers, public safety officers, and many other white-collar and blue-collar employees are the main target of this nation-wide assault.  Decades of union bargaining in a majority of states has provided millions of public workers with the kind of job-based health insurance and retirement coverage that all Americans should enjoy, but that most don’t.

At the bottom tier of public employment, there’s another group of workers — only recently arrived at the bargaining table — who are not “privileged” by any standard.  These are the hundreds of thousands of direct-care providers who work with children, the aged, or the disabled in their own or other families’ homes.  These caregivers are mainly low-income, non-white, female, and, in some states, foreign born.  Their contingent labor is largely invisible as well as undervalued.  Even with union representation, these jobs pay little more than the minimum wage and lack significant benefits.