1199SEIU files NLRB petition to represent about 190,000 New York personal assistants

1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East has filed with the National Labor Relations Board for a union election covering about 190,000 New York consumer-directed personal assistants paid through Public Partnerships LLC, a move that could set up one of the largest private-sector union representation votes in U.S. history.

The petition, filed Sept. 22, is docketed as NLRB case 03-RC-395461. The labor board’s filing lists the proposed bargaining unit at 190,000 employees and describes it as covering all full-time and regular part-time Consumer Directed Personal Assistants employed under the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program in New York state. Public Partnerships LLC, or PPL, is named as the employer. The filing means the union has requested an election; it does not mean an election has been scheduled or won.

The scale of the petition reflects how New York’s consumer-directed home care system has changed. The Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, or CDPAP, is a Medicaid-funded program that allows consumers to choose and direct their own personal assistants, who are often relatives or other trusted caregivers. In 2025, New York consolidated CDPAP payroll administration under a single statewide fiscal intermediary, PPL, creating a centralized structure that makes a petition of this size possible.

Because of that statewide setup, the case could become one of the biggest union representation elections ever held in the U.S., at least by the number of eligible voters. Historical comparisons vary, and the filing is still at an early procedural stage.

According to local reporting citing union officials, 1199SEIU said it gathered about 70,000 signed authorization cards before filing the petition. Those cards are part of the union’s showing of interest for the labor board, though the NLRB has not publicly verified that figure.

Union officials also told local outlets they expect the vote, if it goes forward, to be conducted by mail ballot and could be held by the end of 2026, depending on the labor board’s process. That timeline is not final. Todd Hobler, executive vice president of 1199SEIU’s Upstate Division, told WXXI that the size of the unit could make the logistics unusually complex.

“The NLRB will have to print 200,000 ballots. They’ll have to hire somebody to count all those ballots, and they have to have time for it to go out and then come back,” Hobler said.

The filing comes after a turbulent period for New York’s consumer-directed care system. The state’s shift to a single fiscal intermediary under PPL drew criticism and public scrutiny, and prior reporting has raised questions about an earlier working relationship between 1199SEIU and PPL. Those issues could continue to draw attention as the representation case moves forward, though they are separate from the labor board’s threshold question of whether to process the petition toward an election.

SEIU’s national account celebrated the campaign on social media Wednesday as a historic organizing effort involving “nearly 200,000” workers, but the core legal development is the NLRB petition itself.

For now, the next steps rest with the labor board, the federal agency that oversees private-sector union elections. The petition establishes that 1199SEIU is seeking to represent the statewide unit of CDPAP personal assistants employed through PPL. It does not yet establish when voting will occur, whether the unit will be approved exactly as proposed, or how workers would ultimately vote.