The Obama administration will propose new regulations on Thursday to give the nation’s roughly two million home-care workers minimum wage and overtime protections after those workers had long been exempted from coverage, according to a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity.þþLabor unions and advocates for low-wage workers have pushed for the changes, asserting that the 37-year-old exemption improperly swept these workers, who care for many elderly and disabled Americans, into the same “companion” category as babysitters. In its announcement, the administration will call for home-care aides to be protected under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the nation’s main wage and hour law, as most other workers are.þþThe administration official, who was not authorized to announce the plan, said the White House was to make it public at noon Thursday.þþ“The job they do is a real job and they deserve the same basic rights as any other workers,” said Steven Edelstein, national policy director of PHI, a nonprofit group that seeks to improve conditions for home-care workers. “This industry has one of the nation’s fastest-growing work forces, and the challenge is to make these better jobs if we’re trying to attract good people to come and provide the services.”þþLabor Secretary Hilda Solis has made clear for several months that she was considering updating decades-old regulations in several areas, including the home-care industry. The changes the administration is to propose, which will be subject to 60 days of public comment, will largely affect a low-paid group, largely comprised of minority and immigrant women.þþIn recent weeks, numerous Republican lawmakers have criticized the anticipated proposals, saying they would increase costs for federal and state programs as well as individuals.þþAt a hearing last month, Representative Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican who is chairman of the House Education and the Workforce’s subcommittee on workforce protections, said, “Medicare and Medicaid expenses will likely increase as a result” of narrowing the companionship exemption. He added that the move was going to make senior citizens and their families “less able to afford home care, which is typically paid not by insurance, but by families themselves.”þþIn 1974, the Labor Department exempted “companionship” workers from coverage under the Fair Labor Standards Act, a move that focused on babysitters at a time the home-care industry was in many ways in its infancy.þþIndustry experts say the overwhelming majority of today’s home-care aides are paid at least the minimum wage, but many, because of the exemption, do not receive time-and-a-half premium when they work more than 40 hours a week.þþUnder the changes, industry experts said, these workers would receive overtime pay, and for the first time many home-care agencies would be required to pay their aides for the hours spent each day traveling between patients’ homes. Many home-care workers are trained as health aides but some are attendants only.þþAccording to the federal government, the nation’s over-65 population will climb to 72 million in 2030, from 40 million today, with an estimated 27 million of them needing some form of home care.
Source: NY Times
