Bill Would Apply Minimum Wage, Overtime to Home Care Workers

[OrwellwasRight]

From Congresswoman Sanchez's Press Release:

“I am here to say that our nation’s laws should respect all hard working Americans equally,” said Rep. Linda Sánchez. “No matter whether you sit behind a corporate desk or care for an elderly person in a home, all work has dignity.”

This legislation builds upon prior efforts to protect these hard-working and vulnerable workers. Last year, Rep. Sánchez, Co-Chair of the Congressional Labor and Working Families Caucus, spearheaded a letter to the U.S. Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, urging her to change the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regulations so that home care workers would be entitled to minimum wage and overtime. The DOL responded by including the issue on its list of regulatory items to address, but has not yet proposed a new rule. Sánchez believes the issue is important enough to proceed on both tracks.

“As the daughter of a father living with Alzheimer’s – I know just how important home care workers are,” continued Rep. Sánchez. “Yet, every year, home-care aides land on Forbes magazine’s list of the ‘25 worst-paying jobs in America.’ Direct-care workers make up one of the largest and fastest growing work forces in the country, playing a vital role in job creation and economic growth. Regardless of the work you do, if you do it well, you should be compensated enough to take care of your family and put food on the table.”

More here:

http://www.dcemploymentlawupdate.com/2010/07/articles/employment-wage-and-hour-law/bill-would-apply-minimum-wage-overtime-to-home-care-workers/

[dkf]

1. How are they not getting paid OT?

Is that some sort of exempted class like farm workers?

[OrwellwasRight]

2. Exactly.

All "domestics" (read: African -American help around the house) were excluded from the original Fair Labor Standards Act in 1935. In 1974, Congress amended the law to include most domestic workers, but the Secretary of Labor wrote the regs to continue to exclude "companionship services," which is how they classify home care workers. These folks don't just cook and clean, they feed, bathe, dress, change diapers and bedpans, manage medications, all the things that you can think of to ensure that seniors and people with disabilities can continue to live at home and not in an institution. Yet they are not important enough to rate the most minimal protections of the law, minimum wage and overtime??? It's an injustice that needs to end.

[dkf]

3. I'm shocked how many professions don't qualify for a minimum wage.

[OrwellwasRight]

4. Or how easy it is for employers

to pretend you are an "independent contractor" and deprive you of all rights altogether.

[w4rma]

5. Lets get these laws changed then. Where is the push to end "independent contractor" abuse? (nt)

[OrwellwasRight]

6. Harkin just had a hearing on it in the Senate and McDermott

has a bill in the House. Call your Rep and ask him to co-sponsor!

[w4rma]

8. I will! (nt)

[thecrow]

7. We are paying $5,000 per month

to have our parents with a 24 hour caretaker....
and that'sin addition to the $4,000 a month for them to live in
an assisted living facility.
We pay extra for weekends and holidays.
If I could, I would take the job myself.

[OrwellwasRight]

9. At those rates, I certainly hope the actual caretaker is making at least

minimum wage and overtime, and it is not all going into the pocket of the facility operator. Nursing homes and home health agencies are quite lucrative industries -- they provide a needed service, but like others in the healthcare industry, there is sometimes ugly gouging going on (e.g., Big Pharma, insurance companies . . .)

[thecrow]

10. She makes an average of $179 per day (($7.45 an hour)

The thing is these caretakers are from Ghana and I think the agency recruits everyone from Ghana.
It must be better to come here and then go home, because that's what they do I guess when their visas are up.
This past year we had about 8 caretakers. Everytime they put someone new in there, they need to be brought up to speed on our parents' needs.

[OrwellwasRight]

11. That is one of the points of the bill,

to increase retention in the field, not only through ensuring minimal pay standards, but by increasing training and professionalizng the workforce. One of the most detrimental things in care of seniors and people with disabilities is the staff turnover. And one of the reasons that turnover is so high is that, for the work to be done (which often involves sleeping at some one else's house and not with your own children and husband, but also changing of diapers/bed pans/or colostomy bags), the remuneration isn't that great. If that was your job and you could make more money and deal with less bodily fluids by going into waitressing, for example, wouldn't you? (I think I would) Anyway, apparently, that is why many leave -- which ends up disrupting care for those in need. Seems like there ought to be a better way.