The Eldercare Workforce Alliance (EWA) sent a letter to Department of Labor (DOL) Secretary Hilda Solis on July 15, urging that she use her authority and “take timely action” to reinterpret the “companionship exemption” in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
The letter (pdf) explains that extending federal minimum wage and overtime protections to the nation’s 1.5 million home- and community-based care workers who provide critical long-term services and supports to elders and people with disabilities would both improve the quality of care for consumers and provide better support for family caregivers.
THe DOL will be holding call-in listening sessions on the FLSA’s companionship exemption on July 25 and 27.
Facilitating the Recruitment and Retention of Workers
Expanding federal wage and hour protections to these workers would “improve quality care by facilitating the recruitment and retention of a quality workforce,” said PHI President Steven Dawson and American Geriatrics Society Chief Operating Officer Nancy Lundebjerg, the co-conveners of the EWA, a coalition of 28 organizations representing the nation’s leading advocates for older adults, who signed the letter.
The EWA letter reminds Secretary Solis that with the aging of our nation’s population, direct-care workers are the “fastest-growing employment sector within the health care industry” and that “strengthening home care occupations can also drive long-term economic growth, particularly within low-income communities.”
FLSA Improvements Urged at House Hearing
Just one day earlier, the House Education and the Workforce Committee’s Subcommittee on Workforce Protections held a hearing entitled, “The Fair Labor Standards Act: Is It Meeting the Needs of the Twenty-First Century Workplace?,” chaired by Representative Tim Walberg (R-MI).
In his opening remarks, Walberg noted that FLSA “governs the employment of more than 130 million workers.” He went on to say that FLSA “reflects our shared desire to see individuals receive fair compensation for their work. We all want, as the saying goes, to see a worker complete an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.”
Walberg said that there have been unintended consequence of the FLSA; the law has been challenging for employers, especially small businesses; litigation under the law has skyrocketed; and new technologies have impacted the workplace since the FLSA was enacted decades ago in 1938.
Evolution of the Home Care Industry
Judith M. Conti, the federal advocacy coordinator at the National Employment Law Project (NELP), testified (pdf) at the hearing, stressing both the importance of the FLSA — especially for low-income, hourly wage workers — and the importance of vigorously enforcing the law.
Conti said, however, that the “companionship exemption” was an FLSA protection that needed to be modernized.
Referring to the home care workforce, she said, “Whatever the merits of their original exclusion from minimum wage and overtime protections, this archaic exemption has failed to keep up with the evolution of the industry and the workers who have built” it.
Conti recommended that Congress pass the Direct Care Job Quality Improvement Act of 2011 (H.R. 2341) to “remedy a serious flaw in current DOL regulations.” She added that DOL also has the authority to “remedy this injustice” by revising the regulations.
The companionship exemption is on DOL’s Regulatory Agenda, and Conti urged the department to act swiftly and issue proposed regulations.
– by Deane Beebe
