Au Pair Class action law suit - what does this mean for host families?
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Anonymous
Maybe. At least in the past. Current minimum wage in DC and MoCo is above $12/hr, so if you love there you'd have to be using no more than about 17 hours. It is true that you can deduct a minimal cost of room and board (not market rate, just actual expense) if an employee is live-in for her convenience and not yours. That would be hard to argue since living in is part of the program, but would increase the number of hours you could use for the current stipend. |
Anonymous
| Not sure what the outcome of this will be, but all that stuff about treating the AP as a family member (paying her way at dinner, outing, some vacations, including her in all holiday celebrations)....would the HFs drop that? I think it would be hard to justify if the relationship is completely reconfigured as employer-employee. And I think I'd prefer for her to live out also, if I can't get a fair market rate discount for the room & board, insurance, etc. It's going to ruin the program for sure if this prevails. |
Anonymous
And the agencies are trying to shift the burden..saying they are not the employer, the host family is. Ultimately, the host family will draw the short stick and lose out. |
Anonymous
A disgruntled AP that isn't aware that similar working hours don't only exist in the US but are the norm in other typical first world countries. Most people do not work "9 to 5" and even working 9 to 5 doesn't mean leaving home at 9 and returning at 5. Leaving home around 6am and not returning before 5/6pm is the norm for an adult working full-time to support a family rather than an exception. I just talked to a friend yesterday (teacher, non US, Western Europe) who has just started a new job - she has to be at the train station at 6.30am (which means leaving home at 6.15am at the latest), school starts at 7.45am and ends at 4pm, which makes her just miss her hourly train, next train leaves 4.45pm, she's back home around 6pm (Mon-Thu, 3pm on Fri). Average working hours for full-time employees in Europe? 41.6 hrs (https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/dec/08/europe-working-hours) (I guess we should add half an hour for lunch per day?) Average daily commuting time in Europe? 36 minutes (.6 hrs) (https://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch6en/conc6en/commutingtimeeurope.html) 8-10 hour work days and a commute are not exclusive to the US and while no, many people do not work 6am to 6pm from Monday through Friday, something like 7am to 5pm is absolutely the norm. I'd love to have a 4hr break during the day to go to the gym or get some shopping done, to read, watch tv, relax but alas, I don't.
You are aware that the program is not free for APs, right? And that they pay for their own visas (the agency covers the SEVIS fee which is a whooping $35 for the AP programm, https://www.ice.gov/sevis/i901/faq)? No, they don't pay $8,000 (but really, if they had $8,000 they would spend them on a vacation to the US or to study abroad, not to babysit and live with a host family... there is also no reason for the AP to pay the full fee for an agency the HF picks) but anywhere from $1,000 to [no idea but more than that] to the agency alone. Plus $160 for the J1 visa (and that is ignoring all additional expenses like traveling to the closest embassy or their departure airport). Let's take a German AP (because that's really the country I know most about) and let her pay her own way (or part of it): Agency interview $50 (that's how much I used to receive to screen one AP, let's be fair and double it to pay for the room as well) Agency cost $250 (difficult to guess but considering minimum wage that's 20+ hours spent on one applicant, I really doubt it's more, I'd assume it's much less actually) J1 visa + AP Sevis fee $195 ($160 of which APs are already paying out of pocket) Flight $900 (that's the price for an Air Lingus flight to NYC in August with a return three months later as I can't yet check prices for August/September next year - surely, agencies do not pay market rate) Health insurance $450 (a year of international AP health insurance, basic package) Good. We just got your AP to the US. That leaves the workshop (if we assume it still exists), let's assume a family room (sleeping 4 APs) in NYC for four nights (Mon - Fri) $250 (current price for the Fairfield Inn & Suites New York Manhattan Downtown East, four nights in a shared family room, I am sure you could do cheaper, a hostel is as little as $25 per night) Subway JFK to Manhattan $5 (and we will double this because she also needs to get back to the airport to fly to her HF) $2,200 (rounded) Cultural Care currently charges a German AP $1,425 (program fee and insurance) plus the visa fee the AP needs to pay so $1,585 (let's round that to $1,600). That's... actually not a lot less (yes, ~30% but in the grand total? Either is a lot of money for somebody right out of school or vocational training or university). That leaves the workshop cost (no idea how much that would be but I think it would be in the best interest for the HF to cover it, right?), the flight from NYC to the HF (definitely on the HF, no? not AP's problem HF doesn't live in NYC) plus the local LCC (who earns what? $40 per family per month?). If you fully take the agency out of the equation, match with the AP through a free online platform, throw out the workshop and the LCC, just for base cost... Full SEVIS fee (for J1) is $180 plus the visa fee of $160 -> visa: $340 Flight (Germany - DC) -> $900 Health Insurance (and let's switch her to the premium package, just because we can) -> $650 Huh. Funny. That is actually not much more than the $1,600 CC asks from their German APs ($1,900). As the program benefits both the AP and the HF let's do what's often done in Europe - let's split the cost 50/50. *** If anything I think the lawsuit will make the program more expensive. Because many people will bail if they have to pay minium wage and the few that stay in the program because they have to (split shift, weekends etc.) or because they really really want to (for the cultural aspect or language or whatever) will have to pay the price for that in having even higher agency fees. Some agencies would probably shut down completely. Less competition might allow the remaining agecies to raise their prices still more. With fewer families how attractive will the program be for applicants? There would definitely be higher competition but would the program then remain attractive for prospective APs? Currently they apply and if they are somewhat average and open they will most likely be able to match. What if matching rate drops to 10%? Would people still apply? Would it be worth their time to apply and put their lives on hold or would they just not bother with it any more? Would it lead to candidates that are more qualified (because the remaining agencies only accept the cream of the crop) or to even less qualified candidates (because the better qualified just don't bother and rather try and find a real job in their home country) or maybe an overflow of candidates from countries where there are no jobs (most likely seeing numbers of Germans, Scandinavians, Austrians, Dutch etc. AP candidates dwindle)? Would prices for APs drop in the home countries because agencies are now desperate for applicants (and would a free or nearly free program attract the 'right' people?) or would they rise because the program is now more exclusive? Would an AP be willing (or able) to pay $5,000 / 8,000 for a year abroad? To work? For a family they don't know but they'd have to live with? A family that probably gets minimal screening? A family that will never get kicked out of the program because they will be made pay well? (Personally, I'd have preferred to spend a school year in the US but those run between $7,000 and $12,000 which was costprohibitive) Add the current immigration politics the US are heading to... Let's just do away with the program. It was great while it lastest and best when it was seen as an exchange program rather than a work and travel program. It will be forgotten in a decade. Maybe children will remember the times when they had aupairs and maybe in 20/30 years, when today's children have children of their own they will remember how nice it was to have an aupair but really? The childcare market will adapt. Daycares will change hours because there is demand. Employers will have to handle more parents working part time, coming later, leaving earlier or calling out because their kids are sick. People will need to stop moving away from their home town for college or work because they need at least one set of parents closeby so that granny and grandpa can watch the kids after school (let's just hope everybody had kids in their 30s and granny and grandpa are already retired). Let's go back to mothers staying home or only working part-time because (flexible) childcare isn't available. It will work itself out. I'd be sad to see it go because I have seen so many wonderful examples of what the program can do... but with how the world turns at the moment? I just can't see it. |
Anonymous
| They arent going to get a class certified in this case so I would just not worry about it. |
Anonymous
They were just certified as a class. |
Anonymous
The opinion certified the class for most but not all claims. State wage claims were not certified. And the FLSA claims are being handled separately for class certification purposes b/c the law surrounding class cert under the FLSA is different. I don't think the FLSA claims will end up with meaningful class certification in the end due to the many differences in AP situations (not sufficiently similar for class treatment). |
Anonymous
Can you explain this further? |
Anonymous
My basic understanding is that class certification process under the FLSA is a two step process (which is not the case for the other claims being made by the APs, e.g. that the agencies conspired to keep the pay to the minimum/stipend). The first step is "conditional certification" which is universally understood to be a low burden for plaintiffs to meet (some defendants don't even fight this part, though they should b/c it's far from automatic and courts have denied conditional cert in some cases... but I digress). I believe here conditional class cert was indeed granted on the FLSA claims in the past (but I don't know if it was by stipulation, b/c the defendants agreed, or if there was briefing and ruling on it.. I just haven't checked into it). After conditional certification is granted on FLSA claims, there is a period of communication with prospective class members to see if they want to "opt in" (via a process that is negotiated/litigated as part of the case). Then later there is a second step in the FLSA class certification litigation process, after the "opt ins" are done and this is the nitty gritty step is in FLSA class certification proceedings), during which plaintiffs will likely move for the ACTUAL (not conditional) class certification and usually defendants will move to decertify the conditional class based on things like the opt in class members being too dissimilar. This second step is where I think the APs will lose, though it's impossible to know and I admit that I have not been following it closely enough. I also can't say offhand whether I think the other non-FLSA claims for which class has been certified as part of the recent motion are of the type that could fatally wound the AP program, or whether they are a meaningless blip to most of us or somewhere in between. |
Anonymous
| And the litigation process with take YEARS to work its way through the certification process and briefing etc. I just can't get worked up about this. |
Anonymous
While I do see the program ending if the plaintiffs prevail in this lawsuit, I don't see it changing the demographics of the country ( i.e. where people live), daycare hours, or the work schedules of working parents. I think it just makes life a little harder for those HFs who benefitted from the program. But I think we're the ones who will have to adapt, not employers or day care. I can imagine nannies getting even more demanding in terms of $$ because, like it or not, APs "compete" with nannies in many areas. How many APs are there in the US at one time anyway? |
Anonymous
| This program will go away and nobody will care except HF who want more years out of and APs who had it on their bucket list. Think of all your friends who figure it out without an AP. Not the end of the world! |
Anonymous
|
If we end up in a place where reasonable room and board can't be dedicated, then this program is over.
The reasoning I have seen is circular. Room and board can't be deducted because it is a requirement that the AP live with you. But the,visa terms require them to live with us, not us. Hope this get sorted out reasonably. I agree that APs working a full 45 hours don't get paid enough. But many many APs,work much less than that. Mine works 20 hours. And that includes the time she takes to the kids housekeeping chores. |
Anonymous
| The problem is that “cultural exchange” and “treated like family” can’t be regulated. The stipend can be regulated. Too many families treat this program like a work program. They milk every second out of 45+ hours, never spend time with AP, treat her liked the hired help, etc. |
Anonymous
| As a former au pair and current nanny, I think this is excellent!!! |