Supreme Court Takes Another Swing at Women's Rights and Decks Home Health Care Workers

June 27, 2007

By Jenny Paul-Rappaport, NOW Policy Intern

In another devastating assault on women, working women in particular, the Supreme Court ruled last week that home health care workers - who are paid to work as caregivers - are not entitled to be paid minimum wage, earn overtime pay, and other basic job benefits. This horrifying decision leaves millions of hard-working women, who comprise 90% of the paid caregiver workforce, without the right to the wages and benefits guaranteed by the Fair Labor Standards Act.

What a travesty for the workers who spend long and often grueling hours caring for our injured, disabled, sick and elderly. The Fair Labor Standards Act was first introduced in 1938, and was amended in 1974 to include domestic workers from agencies as well as individual workers. However, the law makes an exemption for babysitters and workers providing "companionship services," and the ensuing regulations, wrongly many believe, interpreted this to include care for elderly and infirm patients.

Yet in a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled in Long Island Care at Home v. Coke that the exemption for "companionship services" workers under the 1974 Fair Labor Standards Act was constitutional. The exemption in effect equates full-time home caregivers with occasional and part-time babysitters or pet sitters.

The ruling leaves 2.1 million low wage workers ineligible for minimum wage or overtime coverage and any other basic employment benefits or protections from discrimination afforded other workers under this act.

The Court's ruling excludes all workers providing in-home care for sick, elderly or disabled people, even if they are employed by home care agencies and businesses. The decision allows these companies to pay their employees appallingly low wages and give them no benefits while they make a profit.

"These businesses should be held to the same labor standards, however
modest, with which every other business is required to comply," said NOW President Kim Gandy.

Gandy explains that this Supreme Court decision can - and must - be
overturned so that home health care workers are considered "real" workers. NOW urges the Department of Labor to reassess its interpretation of "companionship services" and more narrowly define the workers who fall in this exemption category. Either through new rulemaking or Executive order, home health workers and caregivers must be treated in the same manner as all other workers. If these efforts fail, Congress must make this clarification by amending the Fair Labor Standards Act to specifically include these workers in the act's protections.

Women are the majority of all paid and unpaid caregivers in the United States. Caregivers perform physically demanding and stressful jobs that often entail around the clock care.

"Despite their hard work these workers are among the lowest paid out of all service industry employees," said Gandy. "They deserve the protection of fair wages and benefits for their hard work and dedication to their difficult and important jobs. NOW calls on Congress to remedy this miscarriage of legal and economic justice and find a way to protect the rights of these millions of hard-working low-wage workers."

For more information:

• Read the full decision from the Supreme Court: Long Island Care at
  Home v. Coke (PDF)
• Information on home health aides from the Bureau of Labor Statistics