A few days after labor and advocate organizations beseeched the Department of Labor (DOL) not to delay or give up on it, the DOL Solicitor, M. Patricia Smith, announced that the proposed amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to incorporate home care workers won’t be ready by November, as the department’s regulatory agenda had forecast. She now says the DOL “hopes” to implement the rule in 2015.
Under the FLSA, domestic labor is largely unregulated, meaning that many home workers caring for the elderly and disabled are often not paid minimum wages or overtime.
Opposition to the proposed rule arose from several quarters, but most tellingly from state Medicare directors whose agencies must fund most of these workers.
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