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Tuesday, June 12, 2007

If you liked 1907, 2007 looks great
Posted by Jill | 7:04 AM
As the concentration of American wealth continues to filter upwards towards those who need it least and away from those who need it most, the Supreme Court is falling right into line.

Last week the Court made it next-to-impossible to sue for pay discrimination, saying, in essence, that if you don't break into the HR offices and find out everyone's pay rate within 180 days, you are out of luck.

Then yesterday, in a double-whammy to American workers, the Court decided that companies faced with viable alternatives to terminating their pension plans don't have to even consider them and in one of the most appalling decisions in recent memory, decided that low-wage home health care workers are not only not entitled to overtime, they aren't even entitled to the minimum wage! That it was Stephen Breyer who wrote the majority opinion just makes it worse.

Home health care is one of the worst-paid jobs in the country. The work is difficult, stressful -- and vital. The companies that place these workers rake in huge hourly fees, and the actual worker sees little of it. This is solely about cost containment for state Medicaid expenses and the profits of insurance companies that might cover such care -- and the hell with the mostly female, mostly minority home health care workforce.

With more people being forced into low-paid service jobs because of a declining job base in other higher-paying fields, the notion that people who care for our most vulnerable citizens aren't entitled to a living wage is appalling -- and flies in the face of the American Dream to which most of these very women working for peanuts aspire.

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