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So… what nostalgia-tinted holiday delights are on the agenda for the evening, or the weekend?
Archives for December 2011
Salon Hack List
Speaking of awards, Alex Pareene has named the 20 biggest hacks in the media, and #1 should be no surprise to readers here.
Be good if we could speed this up a little
The United States Supreme Court ruled yesterday against a home care aide from Queens and upheld federal regulations that exempt most home care workers from minimum-wage and overtime protections.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said he would seek to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to ensure that home aides were protected. He said the court decision highlighted “a significant gap in the protections of our laws,” and added that he would work with his colleagues “on a fair solution that treats these hardworking caregivers with the dignity and respect they deserve”.
The home care aide’s name was Evelyn Coke, and she died in 2009:
Year in and year out, Evelyn Coke left her Queens house early to go to the homes of elderly, sick, often dying people. She bathed them, cooked for them, helped them dress and monitored their medications. She sometimes worked three consecutive 24-hour shifts. She loved the work, but she earned only around $7 an hour and got no overtime pay. For years Ms. Coke, a single mother of five, quietly grumbled, and then, quite uncharacteristically, rebelled. In a case that reached the Supreme Court in 2007, Ms. Coke sued to reverse federal labor regulations that exempt home care agencies from having to pay overtime.
The Obama administration proposed regulations on Thursday to give the nation’s nearly two million home care workers minimum wage and overtime protections. Those workers have long been exempted from coverage. Labor unions and advocates for low-wage workers have pushed for the changes, contending that the 37-year-old exemption improperly swept these workers, who care for many elderly and disabled Americans, into the same “companion” category as baby sitters. The administration’s move calls for home care aides to be protected under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the nation’s main wage and hour law.
The White House said 92 percent of these workers were women, nearly 30 percent were African-American and 12 percent Hispanic. Nearly 40 percent rely on public benefits like Medicaid and food stamps. While industry experts say an overwhelming majority are paid at least the minimum wage, many do not receive a time-and-a-half premium when they work more than 40 hours a week. Twenty-two states do not include home health care workers under their wage and hour laws.
Noting that nearly 90 percent of the nation’s home care aides work for agencies, Labor Department officials said such aides would receive the new wage and hour protections. The department said some companions employed by individuals for activities like helping them take walks or engage in hobbies would still be exempt from minimum wage and overtime coverage.
Medicare and Medicaid cover 75% of the cost of home care aides, but nursing homes, the alternative to home care, are ruinously expensive for state and federal governments. Home care aides are a good deal all around, so we should pay them, don’t you think? We’ll hear the usual screeching from conservative politicians and lobbyists but if this bloviating, useless gas bag can make $1.6 million for lobbying members of Congress we can certainly afford time and a half for the women who care for the people who can’t work anymore. If we can’t, if we can’t pay these workers properly, when 40% of them are eligible for food stamps, then all that bullshit we’re always spouting about the inherent dignity of honest labor is about as meaningful as any of the 676 GOP debates on cable television.
Evelyn Coke lost her court case, and Kennedy didn’t get it done in the time he had, but I’m sure both Kennedy and Ms. Coke would be pleased to know advocates kept pushing until they won.
Be good if we could speed this up a littlePost + Comments (36)
Award season
I wanted to get the ball rolling earlier on this this year, so this is post is just to get people thinking.
Let’s come up with nominees for
- Best Balloon-Juice comment.
- Best blog post, as selected by the bloggers (this is a tribute to Jon Swift) — that means select a post from your own blog if you have one.
- Funniest blog post you have read anywhere this year. (I want to turn this into some kind of Jon Swift award too.)
- Best blog post here at Balloon-Juice. I have one request for this one: let’s try to nominate things by the newer FPers — i.e. not me, John, or Tim — because they do good work and they take a lot of shit from some of you in the comment.
Fulfilling your open thread needs…
What I learned from The Corner today…
Warning: All links are to Kathryn-Jean’s Bedsit of Solitude.
Maggie Gallagher thinks Ron Paul is an evil supporter of gay incest, but she would quite like to be the fourth Mrs Gingrich when Callista gets cancer or wrinkles or otherwise wears out her welcome.
Rudolph Giuliani quite likes Newt, because Newt has consistently acted like a suppurating arsehole, just like Rudy and the sainted Ronnie.
Christopher Hitchens is going to be royally pissed off when he gets to heaven and finds out just how wrong he was.
The Iowa debate was a sexy conserva-love-in where all the candidates did a naked liturgical dance and rubbed up against each other while shouting “Obama is the suxxors”.
Bono may be an enormous tosser, but conservatives who write about U2 wank so hard they take off several layers of skin:
Still, I submit that the songs of U2 betray a state of mind, a type of character, a way of looking at the civil social order that is undeniably conservative.
Santorum and Bachmann would be winning if only people didn’t have to listen to them or see them:
If we were to read transcripts of the debate and not watch or listen to TV, both would be at or near the top.
Christmas Parties
This year I’m breaking down my Christmas hate into bite-sized morsels. Today’s topic: Christmas parties. I don’t mind them, generally, if they’re held at a nice place with good food and drink. I don’t even mind an office potluck if it’s during work hours, since you’re eating and playing hooky, both of which are pleasurable activities. But you’re getting into “Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time” territory when you have an office party after work hours that’s a potluck, especially when it’s at someone’s house, as a friend is attending tonight.
What the fuck is wrong with people? If you can’t afford a Christmas party and can’t take time off during work to have a potluck, just don’t have a goddam Christmas party. It’s not that complicated. Your company will survive without one more bout of work-related enforced merriment.