The Direct Care News 
For direct care workers and their allies August 28, 2012
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Worker Rights Champion on Winning a Battle and Waging a War
| This summer, National Employment Law Project (NELP) Legal Co-Director Catherine K. Ruckelshaus won the first class-action suit ever for home care workers in New York. Last week, Ruckelshaus talked to DCA's Elise Nakhnikian about that victory and the related campaign to win the right to minimum wage and overtime pay for home care workers nationwide, in which NELP and DCA are key players.
 | | Catherine Ruckelshaus |
What did you win in New York this summer?
The case was brought on behalf of a group of home care workers who worked for McMillan's Home Care Agency, a small agency in New York City. We brought the case as a class because McMillan's wasn't paying overtime, and it wasn't paying wages for some of the hours worked. In some cases, what people earned didn't even add up to minimum wage.
That's not because the agency actually paid less than the minimum wage per hour, but because some people worked so many hours for no pay that they wound up averaging less than minimum wage, right?
Right. They didn't pay any overtime and they often didn't pay travel time. If a worker had to travel a lot between clients, that could bring her total average wages below the minimum wage. Read more.
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Direct from Washington, DC
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Federal spending cuts scheduled for January could trigger new recession: The Budget Control Act of 2011,which became law last August, mandates automatic cuts to federal spending effective January 1, 2013, if Congress has not created a plan to reduce the federal deficit by then. This so-called sequestration would create $1.2 trillion in spending cuts over the next ten years, including almost $500 billion from defense programs and $500 billion from "non-defense discretionary" programs like health, human services, labor and education. Many of the discretionary programs that could be reduced provide important services and supports to low-income families and individuals. A new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office predicts that the U.S. could go back into recession as a result of the cuts if sequestration goes into effect, and a report from Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) includes more information, including a state-specific breakdown of the effects of sequestration.
Secretary Solis reconfirms DOL commitment to basic labor protections: "We're committed to ensuring that workers are safe on the job and paid what they're owed by law," said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis in a U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) news release. "This means no one can be paid less than $7.25 an hour. It means overtime must be paid for each hour above 40 a week. And it means that employers must provide a safe workplace." Secretary Solis was speaking about the DOL's commitment to basic labor protections for American workers--protections that are not currently extended to hundreds of thousands of direct care workers--in honor of Labor Rights Week, Aug. 27 through September 3.
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Upcoming Conference Hosted by, for Wisconsin Direct Care Workers
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 | | Tracy Dudzinski |
The Wisconsin Direct Caregiver Alliance is excited to announce its third annual conference, which will be held on September 6 and 7 at the Wintergreen resort and conference center in Wisconsin Dells. Our conference is put on by direct care workers for direct care workers. Our aim is to educate direct care workers, give ourselves an opportunity to meet and learn from one another, and strengthen our leadership and advocacy skills.
This year, we're emphasizing three sides of care: caring for yourself, for your consumers, and for your profession. Read more from Tracy.
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