Supreme Court says women not worth $5.85/hour

June 12, 2007

The nation’s home healthcare aides are not entitled to minimum wages orovertime pay under federal law, even if they work for privateemployers, the Supreme Court ruled Monday. The 9-0 decision,which keeps in place a long-standing rule that denies minimum wages andovertime pay to those who provide “companionship services” at home,could trigger a move in Congress to amend the law. With an estimated 1 million workers assisting the elderly and thedisabled in their homes, unions and civil rights groups had urged thejustices to scrap the rule; they say it deprives many of the nation’slowest-paid workers of a living wage. Theysay a large percentage of these aides are women and minorities whooften work all-night shifts. Yet, under federal labor law, they areviewed the same as part-time baby sitters. A U.S. appealscourt in New York had ruled that the minimum-wage law applied to thosehome-care workers who are employed by a private company or a publicagency. If it had been upheld, this decision would have given overtimepay and minimum wages to the vast majority of the nation’s home-careworkers. But the Supreme Court overturned the decision andsaid, in essence, that it is up to Congress to change the law. The FairLabor Standards Act was first enacted in 1938, and is enforced throughregulations set by the Labor Department. The decision is”another blow to struggling, low-wage women,” said Nancy Duff Campbell,co-president of the National Women’s Law Center. It means”profit-making companies can legally choose to pay home-care workersdeplorably low wages or deny them just compensation for overtime.”

As Dick Kaplan says, “Long term care is a feminist issue.” Write your Congressperson and demand fair wages for those who care foir the aged and disabled.

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Discrimination