From babysitters, that is.
From the WSJ:
[A proposed bill in California] would require parents to pay caregivers over the age of 18 minimum wage plus overtime, allow a 10-minute rest every four hours and a half-hour meal break after five hours, reports ABC News.
The bill was written with the intention of extending labor protections for workers caring for the disabled and elderly, according to Democrat Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, the bill’s author. But Republican State Sen. Doug LaMalfa said in a published statement that any babysitter over the age of 18 would fall under the provisions in the bill…..
Live-in caregivers and others on 24-hour shifts would also be entitled to eight hours of uninterrupted sleep, and those working more than five consecutive hours would be allowed to use their employers’ kitchens to cook their own meals, ABC reports.
If only mothers had the same workers rights!
In all seriousness, though, I have no idea what some of my friends in college would do if they had to go through a bureaucratic mess to babysit every now and again. The California legislature’s itch for easy tax grabs is yet another sign of their desperation.
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Comments
It’s not (just) a tax grab. The bill’s sponsor, Tom Ammiano, (a hard-Left Bay Area pol) is in tight with SEIU (they’re his 3rd-biggest donors), and they’ve been trying to organize home-care for years around the country. This is a payoff, sure and simple.
I’ve arranged a caregiver for my DD on a Sat when I’ll be out of town at a wedding. I expect to use the sitter for about 12 hours. So if I lived in CA I would need to get a babysitter to cover 2 meal periods and 3 rest periods? To have someone willing to come into my home for those periods of time I would have to include travel time and probably a minimum fee. Couple that with overtime and I can’t afford to buy a wedding gift. LOL
Burgeoning regulations, increased costs, killing jobs – a Democrat speciality.
I’d ask if they is any level of idiocy these people won’t stoop to, but I’m scared I know the answer.
The American people can’t organize themselves into mutually agreed upon arrangements for even the simplest and most informal of transactions among neighbors without the regulatory guiding hand of the state.
LukeHandCool (whose wife took over his daughter’s $20/hr babysitting job for a busy entertainment industry couple on the next block. And whose Japanese wife is learning Hebrew for free as the girls read to her … and who will tell his wife about her new rights … and suggest she demand them … har har!)
I waiting for them to extend this sort of coverage to persons seeking rock concert tickets and the unemployed lining up to look for work.
There also seems to be a battle to drag the elderly from their homes, into a nursing home where more powerful interests can drain them of their funds, and utilize/abuse Medicare and Medicaid to the max.
Requirements for home care seem to me to be higher than nursing homes. Often a family member or helper could live in and save both people money. And the elderly person is generally much happier at home.
There is certainly a place for nursing homes, but powerful people have been known to make it difficult to keep a parent at home. But it can be cheaper and better physical care at home, and the emotional trauma and distress of being often so alone in a nursing home, is not considered on their scale. They are in sales more than care.
I’ve taken care of my mom at home for 6 years, and that is what I have observed first hand. Now the union wants me to pay them dues? heh … that will probably be next.
“…and those working more than five consecutive hours would be allowed to use their employers’ kitchens to cook their own meals”
In another words…your kitchen is the common property of the Proletariat (or the Crown a la Quartering Act 1765)
I see a market opening for time clocks.
Does the bill include a requirement that the last family with children to leave California turn the lights out?
Thank goodness we live in Texas!
My 3 college age kids have such messed up class schedules that they can’t reasonably ask a regular employer to work around them, but they’re perfect for sitting. Both girls have a full schedule babysitting and tutoring for several families and my son has picked up a dozen pet sitting jobs for people who are working crazy shifts or are out of town for work a couple of days a week. They’re not getting rich, but they’re doing better than surviving.
OK. Tutoring. That wasn’t on the list. Thanks for mentioning it. We’ll write that in at the next session. Let’s see . . . . that should be good for 300K more union members. At $10 per month per. OK. Our union can hire two more of my family members as full time enforcers. Great idea!
Good one! If your sitter is tutoring (or supervising) homework, that means they’ll have to be certified teachers and NEA members…. oh, the fun!
Damn I would not have been able to make my beer and book money in college if this were in place.
that would actually represent a pretty radical pay cut for this Californian’s nanny!
So during their breaks are they just supposed to leave the child unattended or are parents going to have to hire two sitters?
Leave the child unattended so that CPS can charge the parents and steal the kid to sell to Angelina Jolie.
Then again, why would any family with children want to live in CA anyways. They are watermelons to the highest degree. The “green” movement is all about making life more difficult for average families and discouraging reproduction. Perhaps this is just another backdoor form of birth control… or it will be one more reason for people to move away and/or get back to taking care of their own. When all is said and done CA will be left with those rich enough not to worry about the cost of regulations and those poor enough to get it all for free.
Step 1: Regulate
Step 2: Tax
Step 3: Extort/Unionize
What’s next? Parents must provide workers’ comp? What about unemployment insurance? Disability ins? Pay into SS? Provide vacation time? Paid holidays?
The intent of this proposed law is to take care out of the home and into businesses where employees can be unionized.
Most baby sitters would scoff at minimum wage. The going rate in my area is $15 for the first kid, $10 for the second. Makes for an expensive dinner & movie.
And the nannies must be members of a union. The teamsters, maybe.