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The Nanny State: Your Babysitter's Rights to Minimum Wage, Overtime, and Paid Vacation
Nannies, babysitters and housekeepers could get treated more like other workers who work outside the home under a bill being proposed by state legislators.
That has drawn howls of protest from critics of the nanny state and others who say it's just not practical, given the nature of domestic work.
Officially, the bill is called the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights Act, but unofficially it's being called the babysitter bill.
The bill (AB 889) would mandate that domestic workers get meal breaks, paid vacation time, minimum wage, overtime and workers compensation. And the bill would also give workers more leverage to sue their employers, if they don't get those benefits.
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There are exceptions for the teenagers or relatives, who get hired (or coerced!) into babysitting when mom and dad need a date night out, but critics who like to decry "nanny state" legislation aren't too happy with the bill.
"I'm just shaking my head at the whole thought that a simple entry-level business transaction of parents hiring the baby sitter down the block or around corner for a couple of hours is now a gigantic, bureaucratic legalistic business proposition," Republican state senator Sen. Doug LaMalfa toldThe Record Searchlight. "In the good old days it's a cash proposition."
Others worry that mandating breaks and meals for domestic workers means that technically no one is watching junior for two 10-minute breaks and one 30-minute lunch every day.
Democrat supporters call ita way to end "the historic exclusion of domestic workers from labor protections afforded to workers in other industries."
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