Fair Home Health Care Act of 2007 Introduced in Senate, House

Pending Legislation: Overtime for Home Health Care Workers?

Posted on 26-Sep-07 by The Timekeeper

Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) recently introduced legislation to “to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to clarify the exemption for home health care workers from certain provisions of that Act” — in other words, to ensure that home care workers are covered by the FLSA’s minimum wage and overtime protections.

The bill was inspired by the case of Evelyn Coke. Although in 2004 the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled she was entitled to overtime, in June of 2007, the US Supreme Court disagreed, citing the “companionship exemption” of the FLSA. This bill is intended to nullify that ruling and grant overtime protection to skilled home health care workers.

The Fair Home Health Care Act of 2007 (S. 2061) would extend FLSA protections to all home care workers who:

are employed by a home care agency
work more than 20 hours a week
or perform home care on a regular basis

Rep. Lynn Woolsey [D-CA] introduced a companion measure (H.R. 3582) in the House.

So what do you think? Are home health care workers simply “casual helpers” — in the same classification as babysitters — who aren’t entitled to FLSA overtime protections? Should they get overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours a week?