McKnight’s Senior Living Commentary Addresses Abuse of “Part-Time” Shift Workers

As anyone who has a loved on in a care setting can probably attest, the individuals who work there have tough jobs. 

I was interested to read a McKnight’s Senior Living commentary that focuses on a problem that may not be easy for the public to identify, the intentional use of “part-time” help to avoid an obligation to pay benefits for full time workers. 

The author describes one woman who works 30 hours per week for each of  two different employers — that is 60 hours per week of hard work without benefits such as employer-sponsored health insurance.  John O’Connor writes in an important column (with a title that could perhaps, unfortunately, be misunderstood because of the reference to a Hispanic name), Senior Living Has Way Too Many Marias:

We often hear about the labor challenge in senior living. To be sure, it’s very real. There is a lot of competition, and conditions are especially difficult these days. It’s not easy to find and keep people willing to work for the wages that are available.

 

But if we are going to be honest, at least part of the problem has little to do with unforgiving external conditions and more to do with conditions some operators have decided to put in place.

 

To get more to the point, many communities simply refuse to hire full-time workers. From an economics standpoint, that is understandable. But it doesn’t do much for the Marias of the world. And there are a lot more of them out there than many operators would like to admit.