Minimum-wage appeal denied

WASHINGTON — The nation's growing cadre of home health-care aides is not entitled to minimum wages or overtime pay under federal law, even if they work for private employers, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The 9-0 decision, which keeps in place a long-standing rule that denies minimum wages and overtime pay to those who provide "companionship services" at home, could trigger a move in Congress to amend the law.

With an estimated 1 million workers assisting elderly and disabled people in their homes, unions and civil-rights groups had urged the justices to scrap this rule because they say it deprives many of the nation's lowest-paid workers of a living wage.

They said a large percentage of these aides are women and minorities who often work all-night shifts. Yet, under federal labor law, they are viewed the same as part-time baby-sitters.

A U.S. appeals court in New York had ruled that the minimum-wage law applied to those home-care workers who are employed by a private company or a public agency.

If it had been upheld, this decision would have given overtime pay and minimum wages to the vast majority of the nation's home-care workers, since most are employees of companies.

But the Supreme Court said, in essence, that it is up to Congress or the Labor Department to change the Fair Labor Standards Act. The law, passed by Congress in 1938, is enforced through rules issued by the Labor Department.

The decision is "another blow to struggling, low-wage women," said Nancy Duff Campbell, co-president of the National Women's Law Center. It means "profit-making companies can legally choose to pay home-care workers deplorably low wages or deny them just compensation for overtime."

But the ruling won't apply to about 12,000 private home-care agency employees in Washington because the state's Minimum Wage Act already entitles them to overtime pay, said Adam Glickman, spokesman for Service Employees International Union Local 775. But the state's overtime law does not apply to about 25,000 independent home-care workers, he said.

The Service Employees International Union sued to challenge the exemption to minimum wages and overtime on behalf of Evelyn Coke, a 73-year-old retiree who worked for more than 20 years in the homes of elderly patients in New York. She was employed by Long Island Care at Home, a private company that provided home-care aides for elderly people.

Her suit was opposed by the city of New York and the home-care industry on the grounds that it would drive up the costs of providing care for poor and elderly people.

The Supreme Court's opinion in the case avoids the broad issue of fair wages for home-care workers. Instead, it focuses narrowly on whether the Labor Department's regulations are a reasonable interpretation of what Congress intended. In 1974, Congress expanded the reach of the minimum-wage law but said again those in "domestic service employment" were not covered.

Among other cases yesterday:

Environment: The court allowed companies to sue to recover their costs when they voluntarily clean up hazardous material under the Superfund program.

Sentencing: The court agreed to decide whether federal judges are required to impose dramatically longer sentences for crack cocaine than for cocaine powder.

Tobacco: The justices ruled against Philip Morris' effort to get a smokers' lawsuit filed in state court moved to federal court, where damages awards often are smaller.

Material from Seattle Times staff reporter Kyung Song and

The Associated Press

is included in this report.