The Direct Care News 
For direct care workers and their allies July 24, 2012
|
How to Strengthen Social Security and Protect Direct Care Workers
|  "We can strengthen Social Security without cutting benefits for the working- and middle-class people who depend so much on it," says Shawn Fremstad, director of the Inclusive and Sustainable Economy Initiative at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).
Fremstad explains how that can be done in Caring for Caregivers in Retirement: Social Security Works for Direct Care Workers, a new issue brief from CEPR and the Direct Care Alliance. Read more.
|
|
Direct from Washington, DC
| |
House funding bill includes block to minimum wage and overtime protections for home care workers: The U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee's draft fiscal year (FY) 2013 Labor, Health and Human Services (LHHS) funding bill was considered in subcommittee on July 18. The draft bill includes $150 billion in discretionary funding, which is $6.3 billion below last year's level and $8.8 billion below President Obama's budget request. The House bill does not match the Senate Appropriations Committee's LHHS bill, and a Continuing Resolution is expected to fund the federal government at FY 2012 levels into FY 2013. The House Appropriations Committee's draft funding bill includes a provision blocking the U.S. Department of Labor's proposed rule to extend minimum wage and overtime protections to home care workers. To protest the provision, e-mail your representatives or call (202) 224-3121 and ask the operator to connect you to your representative's office. Read ranking members' statements about the bill.
|
Let's Stop Treating Home Care Workers as if They Were Invisible
|  For far too long, direct care workers have been hiding in plain sight. To some, their work is literally invisible, swept under the rug where too many Americans hide anything to do with illness, aging, or disability. Others see their work as unskilled and undemanding, dismissing it in the way "women's work" in general, and caregiving in particular, has been dismissed for generations. So it's no wonder home care workers were left out of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) twice, dismissed as mere domestic "companions," first when FLSA was enacted in 1938 and again when it was amended in 1974.
DCA and our allies are working to make this invisible workforce visible, but we need your help. If you haven't already done so, please take a moment now to sign our petition and tell our government to extend FLSA protections to home care workers now. It's time to give these crucial workers the recognition and basic labor protections they deserve!
|
|
