Domestic Workers Get Some Wage Help

“California’s in-home domestic workers will be entitled to overtime pay for working more than nine hours in a day, or 45 hours in a week, under a law signed Thursday by Gov. Jerry Brown.

The measure, AB241 by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, covers as many as 200,000 nannies, cooks, housekeepers and other domestic workers employed by household residents or agencies. It takes effect in January.

“Domestic workers are primarily women of color, many of them immigrants, and their work has not been respected in the past,” said Ammiano, who attended a private signing ceremony with the governor, along with domestic workers and employers.

SFGate:Egelko

Good for Ammiano!  Great for the workers, though one wonders why it came to this at all.  Why would those who can afford domestic workers have to be lawed into paying more for work above and beyond? Wouldn’t ALL of them expect overtime or bonuses for more than standard work? And, why haven’t domestic workers been covered under existing labor law?  Who carved out the exceptions, at whose behest and for whose benefits?  [Oh never mind. It is rhetorical.]

And good for Egelko at the Chron for picking this out as important.