Labor Expert call for Minimum Labor Protections for Home Care Workers

"Federal reform is urgently needed to provide home care workers with the compensation and respect they deserve," says Peggie Smith. Smith, who is the Murray Family Professor of Law at the University of Iowa College of Law and a graduate of Harvard Law, is talking about a U.S. Supreme Court decision that excluded home care workers from protection under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The court said the workers were providing companionship services. In Protecting Home Care Workers under the Fair Labor Standards Act, (PDF) the second in a series of Direct Care Alliance policy briefs, Smith says the decision “threatens to destabilize the home care industry, erode the precarious economic status of home care workers, and undermine the quality of care that they provide to home care clients.” She outlines two approaches the federal government could take to reverse the ruling: 1. Amend the FLSA to explicitly include home care workers; and 2. Revise Department of Labor (DOL) regulations to significantly limit the reach of the companionship exemption. Smith recommends that the government do both, with the DOL taking immediate action to revise the companionship exemption while Congress works to reverse the impact of the Supreme Court decision by passing the Fair Home Health Care Act. Fixing an injustice “Professor Smith points out that U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis can immediately fix this injustice by simply implementing rules that had already been developed by the Clinton Administration,” says Leonila Vega, executive director of the Direct Care Alliance. As the attorney who argued the case told the Supreme Court, it is unjust to deny home care workers a right that applies to other social servants. “[P]olice and fire personnel are covered, hospital employees are covered, nursing home employees are covered, and other providers of essential services are covered,” he wrote. ”Why should homecare workers uniquely carry the burden of society’s need for their services?” “Home care workers are some of the hardest working people I know,” says Direct Care Alliance board member Tracy Dudzinski, a CNA and home care worker who chairs the board of a worker-owned home care co-op in Wisconsin. “We often put in a ten-hour day to get paid for six. Not being granted basic minimum wage and overtime protection on top of that is just plain wrong. Most every other profession in the U.S. is granted these rights under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Ours should be too.” Ask U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Solis to include home care workers in the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act click on bold text for link Related news and resources The DCA board passes a resolution in favor of the FLSA fix The DCA sends a letter to Secretary Solis asking her to undo the FLSA exemption The DCA sponsors a trip to DC, where one of the asks is that Congresspeople sign a letter to Secretary Solis, asking her to undo the FLSA exemption 37 members of Congress sign the letter to Secretary Solis The Eldercare Workforce Alliance asks for the FLSA fix Elise Nakhnikian Communications Director Direct Care Alliance