In the sweltering heat last week, Denise Leschernier, a home care worker from Quincy, Massachusetts helped lead a delegation to Senator Scott Brown's Boston office to ask that he vote for essential medical funding for Massachusetts. Why? "Because without it, the consumer I work for will be in danger of losing these services."
Denise stood up for thousands of Massachusetts seniors and people with disabilities that day, just as Evelyn Coke stood up for home care workers throughout this country in her fight to ensure that they receive the same basic employment protections as private and public sector workers under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
One year ago today, Evelyn Coke passed away at the age of 74 in her home in Queens, New York. She had raised five children on her own by working 70-hour weeks for much of her life, but received no overtime pay. That injustice formed the foundation of her case, a case she brought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007.
In its ruling, the Court upheld a 1975 regulation classifying home care work as the kind of "companionship" that is exempt from the FLSA. The Court decided against Ms. Coke, but indicated that the U.S. Department of Labor had the authority to change current regulations to include home care workers within this basic set of rights enjoyed by almost all workers.
Today, there are 1.5 million home and community-based care workers throughout the U.S. who are excluded from federal protections regarding minimum wage and overtime pay. Eight national organizations, including SEIU, PHI, the National Council on Aging, the Older Women's League, the Alliance for Retired Americans, the Direct Care Alliance, the National Partnership for Women & Families and NCCNHR (the consumer voice on long term care policy), as well as more than half a dozen state-based disability groups, have signed on to a letter urging Secretary Solis to revise the regulation that denies home care workers essential protections.
Ms. Coke died as she lived -- in poverty, struggling to receive the medical care that she had provided to so many others. She began a journey that home care workers, consumers, senior and disability rights leaders must now complete. May we carry forth her mission to see fairness for all home care workers with the dignity and courage that Evelyn Coke possessed.
View a moving tribute to Evelyn Coke here:
