Reply to Wow. No discussion about the death of the AP program here?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Matahari Women's Worker's Center. They lobbied for the bill ([b]which in a large sense was needed[/b]) and pushed for eliminating the proposed exclusion for au pairs. As a group, they lobby on behalf of nannies, who will benefit from the loss of a more affordable (albeit quite different) childcare option.

I don't think any APs were involved in the push for inclusion in this bill.

Also note that the lawsuit was from one of the AP agencies for clarity from the AG that it didn't apply to APs. Other states have included specific riders that it didn't where MA had those proposed multiple times and pulled (see above).[/quote]

I agree, but I think the baby was thrown out with the bathwater. [/quote]

MA HM here.  I agree completely.  i am a huge fan of a higher min wage, but this was never meant to apply to APs.  And PP is right that it was a home childcare worker advocacy group who pushed this --- it had nothing to do with helping APs and everything to do with killing the AP program to increase the wages and employment options of nannies.
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Although that's not so awful. The AP program is much like the H-1B1 visa issue. Employers want the cheap foreign labor in lieu of employing Americans. Now if families want  on demand childcare in MA then they have to pay a premium for it.[/quote]

Please get over yourself.  It's not "on demand" childcare.  It's *flexible* childcare.  We need early morning and late afternoon.  We tried everything we could last year to go without an AP, but even offering $40 an hour, I could not get anyone reliable to do the hour-each-way drive to my son's special ed school, so we had to go back to the AP program.  I would MUCH rather not have an AP -- we have been hosting 12 years and at this point pay way more for an AP than we need to since we don't need many hours -- but we cannot get anyone other than an AP to do the morning drive.  No American wants to do 6:45-8:45 that involves 84 miles round-trip. Not even for $40 an hour.  So please stop the drama with the "on demand" childcare claim. [/quote]

Live-in childcare, driving your vehicle.   Nanny, housekeeper, college kid...[/quote]

Riiiight. It’s actually not that easy to find, and a lot of people want AP for language immersion for kids.[/quote]

Not a lot, very few actually.

And yes, it is easy to find live in childcare, it is just not easy to find one as cheap as an AuPair.[/quote]

Au pairs/agencies make an exit plan possible (rematch). Other live in arrangements can end up being a nightmare to give them the boot, if necessary.

We have au pairs because it's guaranteed legal childcare for that first year or two with a clear contract. You have no way of knowing that your "legal" nanny is actually using their own SSN or a stolen one without running background checks or going through a nanny agency that supposedly checks.

The MA ruling also makes it unclear what the HF is responsible for (tax withholdings?) and how to properly document them. The agencies have no interest in providing that clarity because they're busy covering their own ass. Requiring HF to basically use a third party payroll service and other admin hassles (just like using a nanny) have eliminated some of the differences that make having an AP "easier."

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