What's Wrong With This Picture

Judge Takes Away Minimum Wage Protections From Home Care Workers

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon struck down a rule change issued by the Department of Labor that would have extended minimum wage and overtime pay protections to home care workers come January. 

In 1974, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) — the law requires American employers to pay their workers at least the minimum wage and extra pay for overtime hours — was expanded to cover domestic workers. Yet a carve-out was included for those who provide “care and fellowship” to the elderly and disabled in their homes.
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Under his ruling, home care workers who are employed by agencies and other third-party employers can still be denied the minimum wage and overtime pay if they provide primarily “fellowship and protection” rather than more in-depth care.

Why, WHY are these hard working and, most often, wonderfully caring people who are taking care of our loved ones paid minimum wage at all? Why aren’t they getting the BIG bucks? Oh, that’s right, because the heads of industry — those mooks with their 3 martini lunches, expense account “dates” and private Learjets REALLY deserve to be paid millions while the person seeing to the health and happiness of our beloved parents/wife/husband/whoev gets LESS than ten bucks hourly and no OT.

//snort//

The median expected annual pay for a typical Chief Executive Officer in the United States is $745,736.

At AFL/CIO.org I found that:

Charif Souki of Cheniere Energy (Liquid Natural Gas folk) scored a fat $141,949,280 in 2013. If an average worker bee type has a pretax annual salary of 35Gs then Mister Souki made 4,028 times their pay.

Lawrence Ellison of Oracle nailed $78,440,657 in 2013. That’s 2,226 times what an Average Joe/Josette makes.

Broadly, there are two types of Home Care Workers — personal care aides and home health aides.

Personal care aides tend to tasks such as bathing, dressing, grooming, cooking and light housekeeping. Additional responsibilities include organizing a client's schedule, grocery shopping, helping a client enjoy recreational opportunities, and providing valuable companionship for someone who may live alone and have no formal caregiver.

Home Health Aides may do all the above plus (from medicare.gov) 

• Check what you’re eating and drinking.
• Check your blood pressure, temperature, heart rate, and breathing.
• Check that you’re taking your prescription and other drugs and any treatments correctly.
• Ask if you’re having pain.
• Check your safety in the home.
• Teach you about your care so you can take care of yourself.
• Coordinate your care. This means they must communicate regularly with you, your doctor, and anyone else who gives you care.

There’s overlap between the two Aide levels certainly.

I knew this asshole who fancied himself a big shot business dude. He owned a successful lawn care biz in a town of about 75,000 folk. That's a lot of lawns. Why do I call this used piece of fried slug feces an asshole?

Bad enough he’s the sort of christian who thinks “blacks were better off as slaves — they’re intellectually inferior,” “the poor are lazy, worthless takers,” gays are an abomination who want to seduce and/or rape our children, feminists are Nazis (yes, he’s a Limbaugh fan from way back) and "don’t you quote the bible to me with that feed the hungry, heal the sick, visit prisoners stuff!" Matthew? Who’s that? He in the Old Testament?

Yes — all that is most def execrable enough but then, then, his supposedly beloved wife had a stroke. A big bad one. She needed care after she returned home from the hospital and rehab joints. Mister Big Shot hired a nurse — truly a smart move. Then he began demanding that she cook all the daily meals for him and the four kids, clean the house, do everyone’s laundry, the shopping and chauffeur the kids around. In short, she was a wife replacement on top of having to do what she was hired for — caring for and helping to rehab someone who'd had a mongo sized stroke.

Then the bastid cut her meager pay by 20%.

She quit. Of course she did! He was an abusive, insensitive, clueless twat. I was just amazed that she stayed as long as she did. This woman was a Registered Nurse — she could easily get a better job anywhere on the planet. 

What about a Personal Care Aide? Often all that’s required to get that gig is a kind demeanor, physical vitality and a willingness to put up with a lot of crap — figurative and literal.

Training/learning is on the job and an aide’s just gotta hope that the family member who’s hired them is smart, empathetic and sane enough to provide all the info and training that’s needed. A total crap shoot.

So, this horrifically underpaid, often ill-trained but earnest, caring, hardworking person is charged with tending our fragile, declining loved ones. What could possibly go wrong!?

And NOW some out of touch, compassion-free judge has ruled against these folks even qualifying for minimum wage?!