Department of Labor Rule Change to Provide Minimum Wage and Overtime Protection to 2 Million In-Home Care Workers
Last week the Obama administration unveiled a proposal to extend minimum wage and overtime protections to approximately two million home health aides and other in-home care providers. The Department of Labor released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that includes proposed changes to the companionship and live-in worker regulations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
When Congress passed the FLSA in 1938, it established a federal minimum wage and a mandate to pay overtime for hours worked exceeding 40 hours per week. However, some job categories were not initially covered by the FLSA, including domestic service workers employed directly by a household. In 1974 Congress amended the law to extend the FLSA’s wage protections to nearly all domestic service workers but included an exemption for workers who provided companionship for the elderly and for babysitters.
The Department of Labor cited the “dramatic transformation” of the home healthcare industry since 1975, the rapidly increasing demand for in-home care, and the relatively stagnant wage growth of in-home care employees as reasons for the proposed rules. The Department maintains that today’s workers who are employed by home care staffing agencies are not the sort of workers that Congress intended to exempt from FSLA protection when it passed the companionship exemption (i.e. babysitters), but rather are “professional caregivers” who perform medically-related tasks for which training is typically a requirement and should be entitled to FLSA protections.
The issue gained attention in 2007 when the Supreme Court decided in Long Island Care at Home, Ltd. v. Evelyn Coke, that a home care aide who worked up to 70 hours per week did not qualify for overtime compensation under the current FSLA regulations. The court said that any changes to such regulations must come from either Congress or the Department of Labor.
While the proposed changes will broaden FLSA regulations to ensure that home health workers are subject to federal minimum wage and overtime law, the proposed rules still exempt from minimum wage and overtime regulations some workers who are employed as companions by individuals for activities such as engaging in hobbies and talking walks. Under the definition of the proposed rules, companionship services would be limited to activities that directly relate to offering ‘fellowship’ and protection to those who are not capable of caring for themselves. Only workers whose duties include providing personal care (e.g. assistance with dressing and grooming) less than 20% of the time would remain exempt from the FLSA’s minimum wage and overtime protections.
Among the other changes in the proposed rules is a requirement for the employers of live-in domestic workers to keep track of the specific hours that such employees work, instead of merely reaching a work agreement with employees. The proposed rules also clarify that workers employed by third-party employers – such as staffing agencies – are not exempt from the minimum wage and overtime protections.
Currently state minimum wage and overtime protection laws for in-home care providers vary widely. For example, 16 states ensure that most in-home care workers receive minimum wage and overtime protection and 5 states and the District of Columbia require that such workers receive the minimum wage but do not mandate overtime eligibility. However, according to the Obama administration, 29 states do not give home health care workers either minimum wage or overtime protection.
The public is invited to submit comments on the proposed rules at www.regulations.gov. Further information including Frequently Asked Questions answered by the Department of Labor and a Comparison of Current vs. Proposed Companionship Regulations chart can be found at http://www.dol.gov/whd/flsa/companionNPRM.htm.
Tags: domestic workers, Fair Labor Standards Act, FLSA, home health aide overtime, in-home care workers
