Tell Labor Department to Adopt Home Care Worker Rule
 |
In December, the Obama administration proposed a new rule to bring the nation’s nearly 2 million home care workers under the protection of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA’s) minimum wage, overtime and other provisions.
But opponents who want to continue to deny these rights to home care workers are mounting a campaign to derail the proposed rule. With the public comment period now open, they are flooding the Department of Labor with negative comments and a barrage of lies, and their congressional friends are backing a bill (H.R. 3066) that attacks the proposed rule.
You can help these hardworking home care workers by clicking here to tell the Department of Labor to adopt the new FLSA rule for home care workers and here to send a message to your lawmakers urging them to oppose the bill.
Home care workers provide back-breaking personal care assistance to many older adults and individuals with disabilities. When President Obama announced the proposed rule, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee said: Read the rest of this entry »
Corporations Pushing Bill to Take Away Overtime from Computer and Web Workers
Apparently unsatisfied by the enormous profits they’ve made while average Americans suffer in a difficult economy, corporations are pushing Congress to enact a new law that would exempt a large class of workers from receiving overtime pay. And they’re receiving support from members of both parties on Capitol Hill.
Dubbed the Computer Professionals Update Act (CPU Act), Senate bill 1747 would change the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to remove overtime protection and compensation from “almost everyone working primarily in information technology” who earns either a salary, or an hourly rate of $27.63, according to Paul E. Almeida, president of the AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees (DPE).
Information technology companies are focused on cutting pay for the people who work for them. If their effort succeeds, however, it will suggest to every other industry that the time is now to gut FLSA for every covered private-sector worker.
Introduced in the U.S. Senate last month by Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), the CPU Act has found a Democratic co-sponsor in Sen. Michael Bennet (Colo.), who is joined by two Republican co-sponsors, Sens. Mike Enzi (Wy.) and Johnny Isakson (Ga.).
