Reply to Proposed DC legislation re: domestic workers

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[quote=Anonymous]I spoke with my Au Pair about the legislation last night-- she told me that there are a lot of APs getting really excited about this prospect, and even though the agencies are encouraging them to remind their host families to write letters, that a number of them are not because they feel like they should be paid more.

It's a shame that this won't accomplish what they are hoping, rather, the program will just cease to exist-- I for one know that as soon as I have to start managing and tracking local taxes again (as we did for our nanny), I will immediately end our participation in the program and use other alternatives.

That said, I get the point of many of my APs friends, which is that many families simply do not treat this program as a cultural exchange, rather, they treat their APs as "the help," and frequently don't respect the hours that they have scheduled, make APs change personal plans late notice and cancel activities with friends, and don't include their APs in travel and other family activities. All of those things I just mentioned contribute to the AP sentiment that if they are only going to be treated as childcare, then they, in turn, should behave like hourly workers (before you jump all over me on this, I totally understand that if we add in cost of living, insurance, etc. that this program is intended to take that all into consideration, but just reinforcing that from the AP perspective, it doesn't feel that way). In particular my AP noted that APs who are in charge of 4 or more children feel particularly taken advantage of, once they get to the U.S. and fully understand/appreciate what the going rate is in the private market for full time help for that many children.

I, for one, will help to lobby to get APs excluded from the bill, however, just want to highlight that it sounds like there certainly is opposition starting to brew. [/quote]

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