Au Pair Class action law suit - what does this mean for host families?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ha! This could be awesome! APs can find apartment, pay for their own food, utilities, education, phone, etc. I will pay 2x minimum!

I don't believe you're actually a HM. But if you are, there's nothing stopping you from paying 2X the minimum now if you feel strongly about it. I feel strongly that room/board/insurance/car use/gas/education/pocket money is worth the difference in the minimum wage, given that I only use 22 hours a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ha! This could be awesome! APs can find apartment, pay for their own food, utilities, education, phone, etc. I will pay 2x minimum!

For that, you could hire a great nanny. That would be $25/hr at DC minimum wage, and $24/hr in Montgomery, Co. You can hire an excellent live-in or live-out nanny for less than that.

It's true- if we needed fulltime. But as we keep saying, us moms CAN'T FIND ANYONE TO WORK OUR SPLIT SHIFTS! I advertised on care.com this fall for three months - 25-30/hr, but split shift needed (6:10-7:10 and 2-6:30). Not one taker who could do all the hours I needed. Not one.

It's that one morning hour. Add some housekeeping to make it 3 hours, and you could find someone. No au pair would take that job either. Even at $25/hr, 25 hours/wk doesn't pay enough to live independently.

On year 11 of hosting. Au pairs love the job. Not sure what you're talking about....

I'm saying you could pay that 2x minimum wage and find a non-au pair nanny if you added some hours, but also that if you're arguing that if they require minimum wage you'd be willing to pay double to an au pair if she covered all of her expenses, my point is that at 25 hrs a week, she couldn't pay for her own expenses even if she was happy with your split shift. You'd be right back where you were with the nanny couldn't find.

[Anonymous]

Split schedules even with 4h beak gives nothing to the Au pair is she lives on suburbs in MD. It looks good on paper but in reality she won't go anywhere and won't do nothing significant. No one is doing work like that. Au pair is grounded. I don't believe that any HP works so long. From 6 am to 6pm? Even if some of you are from medical field you don't work like that from Monday to Friday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Split schedules even with 4h beak gives nothing to the Au pair is she lives on suburbs in MD. It looks good on paper but in reality she won't go anywhere and won't do nothing significant. No one is doing work like that. Au pair is grounded. I don't believe that any HP works so long. From 6 am to 6pm? Even if some of you are from medical field you don't work like that from Monday to Friday.

This is just not true. I'm not in DC but in a NJ suburb near NYC. Nearly all the APs in our very large cluster work a split schedule. And they all love it. They have plenty of time to hit the gym or the mall(s) (which are nice an uncrowded midweek/midday by the way!) - they go to lunch together or just hang out.

[Anonymous]

It's that one morning hour. Add some housekeeping to make it 3 hours, and you could find someone. No au pair would take that job either. Even at $25/hr, 25 hours/wk doesn't pay enough to live independently.

Yes, cleaning/laundry/meal prep. That is our plan. There is no way I would pay minimum wage PLUS room/board, phone, education PLUS agency fees for the 20 hours per week I need. While we loved the cultural exchange piece, we experienced it for 4 years...it’s a nicety, not a necessity and definitely not worth the proposed price tag

[Anonymous]

Split schedules even with 4h beak gives nothing to the Au pair is she lives on suburbs in MD. It looks good on paper but in reality she won't go anywhere and won't do nothing significant. No one is doing work like that. Au pair is grounded. I don't believe that any HP works so long. From 6 am to 6pm? Even if some of you are from medical field you don't work like that from Monday to Friday.

Must be a digruntled AP Welcome to the USA where people work 9-10 hour days with a commute on each end! Gasp! Maybe we excercise in their, grocery shop...

Anyway, most APs work split shift and love it...class from 9:30-11:30, grab lunch with a friend, hit the gym, etc. Ours is working on grad school applications and loves the quiet house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not legal advice. But I suspect if the plaintiffs win, and you have an Au Pair that you are hosting at that time, you will instantly be required to pay her the minimum wage in your location or send her into rematch if you can’t pay that. Check your agency contract- they are very one sided so you won’t get any portion of your agency fee back.

If that happens, there will be no incentive for families to participate in the program. Why would anyone pay what we can pay our neighbor's teen daughter (and we know her!) plus: have this person living in our home, eating our food, having the use of one of our car (cost of gas, insurance, etc). That's in addition of paying for schooling and agency fees. No benefit to the family.

OK. But why should US law care about foreign young adults wanting to come here? I don't see this as a winning argument.

The issue they are presenting is that au pairs don't make enough money, is it not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not legal advice. But I suspect if the plaintiffs win, and you have an Au Pair that you are hosting at that time, you will instantly be required to pay her the minimum wage in your location or send her into rematch if you can’t pay that. Check your agency contract- they are very one sided so you won’t get any portion of your agency fee back.

If that happens, there will be no incentive for families to participate in the program. Why would anyone pay what we can pay our neighbor's teen daughter (and we know her!) plus: have this person living in our home, eating our food, having the use of one of our car (cost of gas, insurance, etc). That's in addition of paying for schooling and agency fees. No benefit to the family.

OK. But why should US law care about foreign young adults wanting to come here? I don't see this as a winning argument.

The issue they are presenting is that au pairs don't make enough money, is it not?

The PP's argument is that if the lawsuit wins, no one will want au pairs anymore and the program will shut down. What I meant by the above comment is that parents cannot assume that the potential for the program to end will make a difference in the ruling. There are two components to the program: work-for-expenses+stipend, and cultural exchange. If the lawsuit determines that instead it has to be work-for-minimum-wage, and it's clear that would lead to the end of the program, I don't see the cultural exchange component being an issue the court would care about enough not to rule in favor of the au pairs.

It's going to come down to whether this program is still a cultural exchange program, or whether it's actually a work program. And that is why they are suing both parents and agencies.

I will say that in the past, these lawsuits almost always favor the less "powerful" person. Remember the nanny lawsuits of the 1990s? Employers and agencies will be assumed to have a better grasp of American labor law than foreign young people. So the defendants are going to have to prove that they were following the spirit of the program, and that it was not essentially a cheap labor market.

Do I think this will shut the au pair program down? I think it's possible if au pairs are determined to be employees and the gov't decided to eliminate the visa to protect American jobs. I also think there will be fewer families who need the full 45 hours in the program, because it's easy to find a full time nanny and wouldn't save them enough money. But I think for families who need part time, split shift care, it would still be easier and at least as cheap to pay minimum wage + expenses. I think the agencies will have to reduce fees, or disappear altogether in favor of some kind of merged super-agency or DIY-type space.

[Anonymous]

How would these foreign young adults find a place to live, afford a place to live, and drive??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How would these foreign young adults find a place to live, afford a place to live, and drive??

I think you'd still be expected to house them. And pay them min wage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How would these foreign young adults find a place to live, afford a place to live, and drive??

I think you'd still be expected to house them. And pay them min wage.

and would APs now pay the $8000 agency fee, for their own visas and flights to America and their host families?

[Anonymous]

Minimum wage based on hours worked or 45 hours. If hours worked, I already pay minimum wage.

[Anonymous]

The case is against agencies not HF

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Minimum wage based on hours worked or 45 hours. If hours worked, I already pay minimum wage.

Labor law says hours worked.

[Anonymous]

Minimum wage based on hours worked or 45 hours. If hours worked, I already pay minimum wage.


Labor law says hours worked.

So many of us who use <25 hours/week already pay minimum wage.