Reply to Host Family Class Action Suit

Forum Index » Au Pair Discussion

Reply to "Host Family Class Action Suit"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Honestly, most Host families are receiving the exact care they pay for you pay these young women less than minimum wage and count housing and in some (not uncommon cases) cereal as a substitute for not paying them a livable wage the program needs to be shut down and its mind-blowing that the host families have anything to complain about with the functionally free labor. You should just be grateful that countries still allow this monstruous labor abuse
 [/quote]

Program definitely needs to get shut down. No need to vilify host families, you either don’t know the economics on their side or willfully choose to disregard so you can make your incorrect “free childcare” claim.  I guess you just want to ignore the ten grand host parents pay to the agency?

I think you don’t understand family economics and only want to focus on what the Au pair gets in her pocket. You ignore what’s paid in her behalf… Also why do Au pairs continue to sign up for the program?  Aren’t they adults with free will who can read contract and make their own decision about whether or not they want to be an Au pair?  Host parents aren’t going to foreign countries and bringing Au pairs to the states in chains, ya know?[/quote]

Oh that is MUCH better that a corporation gets $10,000 while the caretakers themselves make less than minimum wage.  Everyone understands the economics here and still thinks that these women are being exploited.  If you can't afford live in care at a livable wage then that is fine but don't hide behind claiming that others don't understand why someone wants to pay low wages.   [/quote]

You are 100% ignorant.  Most host families pay much more than minimum wage into the program.  What I've paid into the program is closer to $50K (not in DC area anymore and not an extremely HCOL area either) + room. 
Agency fees are $12K a year.  Stipend is $12K a year.  Free phone. Free housing. Free food. Free vacations - yes I've bought her plane tickets and hotel stays for separate vacations. Disney tickets for her off days.  Insurance ($2400 at least a year). Free car use.  Free gas for local driving.     Threw her a birthday party.  Cash bonuses.  Reimbursements for all outings (like lunch or ice cream after playing at the playground).  $$ for education credits.

The value of her room alone is minimum $1200/month, and yeah I wouldn't mind getting that back. I could use that room. If I rented it (low impact to us since it's ensuite, big, and has a separate entrace), we would easily get $1200/month for it.  For us to upgrade to a house with one extra bedroom is at least $500K in purchase price.

If we actually paid au pairs minimum wage which is what they would get given their experience and age, and they are responsible for their own housing and food, they would have $0 or less than $0 spending money left over for fun and travel.  I'm sure there are some bad families that actually try to exploit au pairs, but au pairs on a whole are certainly not exploited and have freedom to rematch to a different family or go home.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics