On June 11, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that home care workers are not entitled to overtime pay under federal law. This decision affects more than a million people in the United States.
From an editorial in the June 15 New York Times:
A retired home health aide who sued her employer for unpaid overtime lost big this week in the Supreme Court — and so did fairness and the health care system. A regulation that was ill-conceived and is cruelly applied is depriving an increasingly important group of health care providers of a decent living.
The story: for 20 years health aide Evelyn Coke, now 73, worked long hours and lots of overtime—sometimes, 24 hour days—for the people her home care agency assigned her to.
The Supreme Court upheld a law dating to 1975 excludes home health aides from overtime and other basic protections, including minimum wage.
More from the editorial:
But the justices were completely silent on the question of whether denying overtime to home health employees is good policy, let alone morally justifiable. Clearly it is neither. As the population ages, home health care has become one of the nation’s fastest growing occupations, with an estimated 650,000 aides currently employed — most of them by for-profit agencies. Most of them are low income, female and minority, a recipe for exploitation. The support of federal labor laws is crucial to ensure that the aides, entrusted with the care of the most vulnerable Americans, are treated with professionalism, fairness and dignity.
The editorial writers point out that “refusing to pay employees fairly for the work they do is not an acceptable way to keep costs down."
Congress has to reform the law to include home health employees. If that intensifies the pressure to find suitable ways to pay for the health needs of an aging population, fine.
Speaking on the other side of the story is Paul Hogan, founder of Home Instead Senior Care, which has 540 franchises in the United States with 41,000 full- and part-time caregivers.
Many seniors need long hours of companionship, even overnights. If the exemption is eliminated the cost of service would go so high it would drive many seniors into the gray market where they would be hiring home care workers directly. There would be no screening, no training, no supervision and no backup.
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3 comments:
I personally work for one of these senior care companies. Unfortunatly it is true, they do not pay overtime. I currently work on average 44 to 52 hour a week. I have four children to support. The excuse of the company was the elderly just can not afford the care. well i beleive not. I work for not one person that is not living in a mansion compared to my shack. These people pay for home care because they want to stay in there home. A residential facility costs about $3000.00 a month. That is a fraction of what i pay to live. I make $1500.00 a month on average working over 40 hours a month. I have to support 4 children on this pitiful wage. Who cant afford what here?
I work 80 hours a week for a home health care agency. They call you at all times of night to get you to work. We make minimum wage, so I'm lucky to make 1500 a month. They charge the clients ridiculously high fees and pay us under half of what they get. We deserve overtime protection!
I worked for one of the franchises for Home Instead Senior Care. I put in a bunch of overtime and was anticipating a nice check. Then I found out they don't pay overtime. I was never told that when I first started with the company. The company charges alot of money to the client and pays way less than half to the caregiver. We are the ones doing all the work. I think Home Instead needs to not be so greedy and start taking care of their caregivers. That's why there is such a big turnover. Take care of the caregivers and you won't have such a big turnover and you will have caregivers with alot more experience because they stay with your company. I'm really disappointed in the company for caring so little about their employees. Anonymous
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