Overtime protections for California domestic workers are here to stay (SB 1015)
Domestic workers include nannies, childcare providers, caregivers or attendants to people with disabilities or seniors, housecleaners, cooks, gardeners, or other household workers. Domestic workers work in a private home, whether they are directly hired by the household or by an agency. “Personal attendants” are caregivers and childcare providers who spend a significant amount of time caring for children, seniors or people with disabilities. Personal attendants can either be live-in or live-out employees.
In 2013, the Legislature enacted and Governor Brown signed the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights (California Labor Code sections 1450–1453 and 1454). As of January 1, 2014, this law extended overtime protection to personal attendants who became entitled to overtime pay at 1.5 times their regular rate of pay for any hours worked in excess of nine (9) hours in a day or in excess of 45 hours in a week.
Until the passage of the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights, personal attendants, who care for and support thousands of individuals and families in California, were excluded from overtime protection.
The Domestic Worker Bill of Rights required the Governor to convene a committee to study and report on the effects of its provisions on personal attendants and their employers. Under the original legislation, the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights would have been repealed as of January 1, 2017.
SB 1015, signed in September 2016, removes the repeal date in the original law making domestic worker overtime protections permanent in the state of California.