Home health-care workers to receive minimum wage, overtime pay

About 2 million direct-care workers across the country now will enjoy the same wage protections as most American workers -- a guarantee of a minimum wage and overtime.

The U.S. Department of Labor on Sept. 17 announced a final rule that extends the Fair Labor Standards Act's minimum-wage and overtime protections to direct-care workers such as home health aides, personal care aides and certified nursing assistants, effective Jan. 1, 2015.

The rule extends minimum-wage and overtime protections to all direct-care workers employed by home-care agencies and other third parties who perform medically related services.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' website, about 250 home health aides are employed in the Cape Girardeau and Jackson area.

Leslie Sadler is the owner of Comfort Care In Home Services in Cape Girardeau, which has a satellite location in Marble Hill, Mo. Comfort Care provides clients services that include personal care, home chores, advanced personal care and nursing. The company employs about 65 in-home direct-care workers, who cover the counties of Cape Girardeau, Bollinger, Scott, Stoddard and Perry, Sadler said.

Comfort Care's clients are their own employers, she said, and can hire and fire their caregivers.

The agency charges an hourly rate for services it provides, and Sadler said her employees are paid higher than the minimum wage.

Minimum wage is $7.35 an hour. The average hourly wage for a home health aide in the Cape Girardeau and Jackson region, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, is $9.56.

Some of Comfort Care's caregivers choose to work more than 40 hours a week because they need the income, but most do not, she said. Sadler questioned how she will be able to afford to pay those employees who work overtime.

"I like to make sure that my caregivers are taken care of, but at the same time, I have to run a business," she said.

Rick Rief is president and CEO of Med Plus Healthcare, which has offices in St. Louis, Fairview Heights, Ill., and a new office in Cape Girardeau. Med Plus is a full-service home health agency that provides services such as skilled nursing, physical, occupational and speech therapy and home health aid in patients' homes.

The local office covers Cape Girardeau, Perry, Bollinger Stoddard and Scott counties, and employs about 15 direct-care workers, Rief said.

He said the agency's direct-care workers are paid "far above" minimum wage, and depending on the worker, they are paid per visit, on salary or an hourly wage.

As for overtime, Rief said the agency does its best to schedule employees 40-hour weeks but "if they were to have overtime wages, they are paid overtime wages."

Rief said the final rule is not going to affect his businesses.

Congress extended the protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1974 to "domestic service" employees, but exempted domestic service employees who provided "companionship services," or engaged in activities such as visiting or playing cards, to elderly people or those with illnesses, injuries or disabilities.

Third-party employers, such as home-care agencies, no longer can claim an exemption to the rules.

Workers who are employed primarily for companionship still will be exempt from minimum wage and overtime protections.

"Congress intended that these hardworking individuals, whose labor is often physically and emotionally demanding, have the protection of our nation's most basic labor standards -- the right to be paid a minimum wage and receive more for working overtime," Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, the country's largest labor federation, said in a statement.

Rich Payne, director of the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center, on Sept. 20 said direct-care workers will know upfront what their opportunities are, such as salary or hourly wage, compensation packages and benefits available to them when they seek various types of employment.

Because of the new rule, direct-care workers will be treated "like any other worker in any other sector, and not treated differently," Payne said.

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