(Photo of NY State Senate)
The New York State Senate passed its version of the Nanny Law. If signed by Governor Paterson, the sweeping bill will mandate overtime pay, vacation, sick and personal time, severance pay, and other added benefits for domestic workers like housekeepers, nannies, and companions to the elderly.
Domestic workers would be required to receive time-and-a-half pay if they work for more than eight hours in a day. Workers who are employed at least 20-hours a week would be given New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Labor Day and Christmas Day off as paid holidays. Forty-hour a week workers would also get one week of paid sick leave a year and five days of paid vacation. Employers would be required to give a domestic worker at least 24-consecutive hours off a week. A domestic worker would be required to receive two weeks notice before being fired under the plan or the employer would have to provide a severance package.
I feel the law requires employers to treat domestic employees like employees, not slaves.
But, there are other opinions not in support of the Nanny Law. For example, in the article Will New York’s Nanny Law Make It Harder for Career Women? Elie Mystal quotes Claudia Deutsch in The Catch 22 of New York’s nanny law in which Deutsch says the law would be hard to regulate, it could bog down the judicial system with paperwork, and make it even harder on parents needing to caregivers.
Are these opinions correct in thinking that the system is set up so that most domestic workers won’t even be able to take advantage of these benefits? so
Are they right in saying that the Nanny Law isn’t necessary regulation and is just useless?