A proposal that would force employers to pay home care workers overtime for time worked over 40 hours a week is a bad idea, a local employer of such workers said, while those pushing for the change want to attract more workers to the field.

Brad Cannon, chief executive officer of Home Instead Senior Care of Bowling Green, said the move from the U.S. Department of Labor would instead result in an eventual decrease in pay for home care workers. 

There is a shortage of home care workers, with 1 million more needed by 2022, according to Deane Beebe, media relations director for the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute.

The federal government’s move to grant the overtime protection would attract more workers to the jobs, she said. “We’re concerned that we are not going to fill the jobs,” Beebe said.

Cannon disagrees with the DOL’s plan to toss the overtime exemption now in place for home care workers. He said if employers are mandated to pay overtime, people who work 60 hours at minimum wage will have their hours capped at 40 and other workers would have to be assigned to their work areas.

Home Instead has about 300 employees. Cannon has been in the home care business for about 13 years.

Cannon said Kentucky already mandates that home care workers be paid minimum wage, so the issue boils down to the overtime issue.

Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute data provided by Beebe noted that Kentucky’s direct-care workforce in 2014 had 36,930 workers of three types: personal care aides (8,890), home health aides (3,990) and nursing assistants (24,070). Beebe said the overtime issue doesn’t apply to nursing assistants since they fall under a different DOL overtime rule.

Those fighting the government from changing the overtime exemption say Congress, not the courts, is a proper venue for the discussions. The DOL decision was scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, but a stay was issued by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon prior to that. He later ruled the government couldn’t make the overtime exemption change.

Leon’s ruling is being challenged. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard arguments last week in an appeal.

Leon ruled the federal government is overstepping its authority in tossing the current overtime exemption for home care workers.

“(The) move is nothing short of yet another thinly veiled effort to do through regulation what could not be done through legislation,” the judge said in 2014.

Home Care Association of America, the International Franchise Association and the National Association for Home Care & Hospice filed suit against the government. 

“In our industry, continuity of care is the key,” Cannon said. “The entire proposal has been marketed as a mechanism to increase caregiver pay.”

Robert Espinoza, vice president of policy for the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute, said last week in a news release that he hopes the DOL is successful in its efforts to change the exemption.

“For more than 40 years, home care workers have been excluded from essential protections based on an outdated understanding of ‘companionship’ and an antiquated meaning of home care delivery,” Espinoza said. “It’s time to correct this wrong.”

– Follow business reporter Charles A. Mason on Twitter at twitter.com/BGDNbusiness or visit bgdailynews.com.