to Provide Minimum Wage and Overtime Protection​s for In-Hom

[admin]

Last Thursday the White House announced that the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division intends to publish a notice of proposed rulemaking that would provide minimum wage and overtime protections for nearly two million workers who provide in-home care services for the elderly and infirm. The proposal will revise the companionship and live-in worker regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act to more clearly define the tasks that may be performed by an exempt companion, and to limit the companionship exemption to companions employed only by the family or household using the services. In addition, the Department proposes that third party employers, such as in-home care staffing agencies, could not claim the companionship exemption or the overtime exemption for live-in domestic workers, even if the employee is jointly employed by the third party and the family or household.

This notice of proposed rulemaking will be available for comment beginning December 27, 2011 at www.regulations.gov. The comment period will close on February 27, 2012.

More information is available at the Proposed Rule Website at http://www.dol.gov/whd/flsa/companionNPRM.htm. You can view the pre-publication version of the notice of proposed rulemaking at http://www.federalregister.gov/articles ... ic-service. You can also view the front-page USA Today article from December 15, 2011 titled “Obama proposes overtime initiative” at http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington ... 51932040/1.