The care worker’s lot is not an easy one. A typical care worker, says Priscilla Smith, a certified nursing assistant in Durham, North Carolina, must “hop from company to company just to make ends meet,” which generally includes caring for a handful of clients. “If you [care for] someone with a general disability, you may get an hour or two hours of work [a day] at the most, so then you have to find someone else,” she says. “And nine times out of 10 that person is not located in the same part of town [as the other], so it’s hard to make 40 hours [a week].”
The absence of adequate worker protections means that care workers may also have to “deal with the disrespect of the family [or] disrespect of the patient,” Smith relates. She has scrubbed baseboards and cleaned ovens because families of patients tell her to, though it’s not in her job duties. If she refuses, however, “they’ll tell you, ‘we can replace you.’”
The American Prospect