Rhode Island House lawmakers Thursday voted to extend labor protections and the state's $13-an-hour minimum wage to maids, nannies, butlers, cleaning ladies, au pairs, gardeners and other domestic workers sometimes referred to as "the help."
Legislation from Pawtucket Democratic Rep. Leonela Felix that would end the longstanding exemption from state employer laws for "any individual employed in domestic service or in or about a private home" passed 56 to 12.
It overcame opposition from lawmakers, including most House Republicans, who said they were concerned it would cause people who pay workers for part-time, informal or irregular jobs to not pay them at all.
"What we are going to do is get them fired," said Rep. David Place, R-Burrillville, "because their employers can't maintain the legal liability to keep them on the books."
Place said the requirement that employers keep three years of payroll records, and the fines levied if they don't, would have a strong disincentive effect.
"The exemption was put in place [not] because we didn't want to pay these maids a living wage, but because of the regulatory burden that is now falling on these employers," he said.
Place was one of three representatives who cited a grandparent's work as a domestic servant many decades ago as support for their argument. (Education Committee and state Democratic Party Chairman Joseph McNamara and Cranston Republican Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung, who both voted for the bill, were the others.)
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