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Justices
Upheld Regulation That Home Care Employees Not Entitled to Overtime The
unanimous decision upheld a 1975 Labor Department regulation exempting the
nation's 1 million home care workers from the protections of the Fair
Labor Standards Act. Justice
Stephen Breyer wrote that the agency did not exceed its authority when it
left home care workers without overtime protection and that "courts
should defer to the department's rule." The
decision “is another blow to struggling, low-wage women,” said Nancy
Duff Campbell, co-president of the National Women's Two
weeks ago, the court limited workers' ability to sue for pay
discrimination, ruling against a Goodyear employee who earned thousands of
dollars less than her male counterparts but waited too long to complain. The
overtime case was brought by lawyers for Evelyn Coke, a 73-year-old
retiree who spent more than two decades in the home care industry helping
the ill and the elderly. Now
in failing health, Coke said her employer never paid her time and a half
for all her extra hours on the job. Lawyers
for Coke challenged the Labor Department regulation, and the 2nd U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals in The
appeals court said it was “implausible” that Congress would have
wanted the Labor Department to wipe out protection for an entire category
of workers. The
Labor Department wrote the restrictive regulation after Congress expanded
the law's coverage. Paying
overtime would cost billions, the home care industry says. In
Coke's
former employer, Long Island Care at Home Ltd., says it would experience
“tremendous and unsustainable losses” if it had to comply with federal
overtime requirements. The
Bush administration and the company that employed Coke opposed her
lawsuit. If
Congress had wanted to apply the law's wage and overtime provisions to
such workers, “it easily could have done so,” the Bush administration
said in papers filed in the case. Instead, Congress assigned the secretary
of labor the task of deciding the issue, the administration said. More Information on US Health Issues
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