WHEREAS:

            Home care workers across the nation are currently exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) minimum wage and overtime protections. The exclusion from these basic labor protections has contributed to the poverty, financial hardship, reliance on public benefits, and disempowerment that plague home care workers; and

WHEREAS:

            In 1974, the FLSA was amended to include domestic workers, but excluded home care workers because their work was considered “companionship services to individuals who because of age or disability are unable to care for themselves.” At that time, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) maintained that even home care workers employed by home care agencies, as opposed to private families, fell under the “companionship exemption”; and

WHEREAS:

            In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in support of the DOL minimum wage and overtime exemption for home care workers; and

WHEREAS:

            The DOL has recently issued a proposed rule to revise the FLSA regulations to ensure home care workers are no longer excluded from the act’s minimum wage and overtime protections. AFSCME provided written comments to DOL expressing its overall support for the proposed rule along with suggested improvements; and

WHEREAS:

            A bill, H.R. 3066, has been introduced in Congress to negate DOL’s proposed rule by amending the FLSA; and

WHEREAS:

            In most states, home care workers are trained and certified and work long, hard hours for tens of thousands of the nation’s elderly and infirm citizens, saving billions of dollars in hospital, hospice and nursing home costs; and

WHEREAS:

            The multi-billion dollar home care industry is largely funded by Medicaid dollars, where for-profit companies and not-for-profit agencies pocket funding that should go to home care workers as wages and overtime pay.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:

            That AFSCME and its affiliates continue to support DOL’s efforts to revise the FLSA regulations to ensure home care workers are no longer denied minimum wage and overtime protections; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:

            That AFSCME and its affiliates aggressively oppose passage of H.B. 3066 and any other legislative attempts to deny home care workers minimum wage and overtime protections provided in the FLSA.