DIR study focuses on the impacts of the new domestic workers’ bill of rights
Officials at the California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) are currently conducting study on the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights to evaluate its effectiveness and impacts, they recently explained in a press release.
As part of this study, which is being facilitated by UC Berkeley’s Labor Occupational Health Program), the DIR is carrying out a series of telephone surveys to discover more about domestic workers’ experiences and gather additional details about how the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights has “affected personal attendants in California.”
What Is the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights?
Enacted in 2013, the California Domestic Worker Bill of Rights (AB 241) provides overtime pay for certain “personal attendants” who had previously not been eligible to this type of compensation under California law.
According to the provisions of this statute:
- Overtime pay is due to qualifying domestic workers who work more than nine (9) hours in a given day or more than 45 hours in a given week (i.e., a given period of 7 consecutive days).
- Overtime pay for these workers is legally defined as compensation that equals 1.5 times their regular rate of pay.
- Domestic workers covered by this Bill of Rights include (but may not be limited to):
- Nannies and childcare providers
- Housekeepers
- Cooks
- Personal attendants, who can include (but are by no means limited to) domestic workers who spend at least 20 percent of their time feeding, supervising or otherwise caring for a child or another person who requires this type of care.
Domestic Workers Rights to Fair Pay & Compensation: The Facts
In addition to the right to overtime pay (afforded by AB 241), domestic workers in California also have various other rights, only some of which include the rights to:
- At least the state minimum wage, which is currently set at $10/hour (and is scheduled to increase in some parts of the state later this year and/or in the coming years)
- Report employers’ wage violations with protections against employers’ retaliation
Despite the laws offering such protections and rights to domestic workers in California, employers are not always compliant or respectful of these laws, which is one of the reasons that the DIR is currently conducting its study.
As the findings from this study become available, we will report the latest updates to you here, in a future blog. Until then, share your opinions about workers’ rights, as well as wage and hour violations, with us on Facebook & Google+.
Contact a Los Angeles Employment Attorney at Urbanic & Associates
Have you been the target of an employer’s wage and hour violations? Or have you been the subject of workplace discrimination, harassment or retaliation? If so, you can turn to a Los Angeles employment attorney at Urbanic & Associates for help defending your rights and pursuing justice.
To speak to one of our lawyers and find out more about your options for proceeding, call (310) 216-0900 or send our firm an email using the contact form on this page.
From our offices based in Los Angeles, Attorney James Urbanic provides superior representation to clients throughout Los Angeles County and southern California, including (but not limited to) those in Glendale, Burbank, Alhambra, Van Nuys, Santa Monica and Orange County.
