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FAIRNESS TO FORGOTTEN WORKERS
07/09/2009
Over the Fourth of July weekend, a group of nitwits ("protestors") on a local street corner held up signs expressing their contempt for government. Never mind that many were obvious recipients of Social Security and Medicare, and all had driven there on public streets, there were the usual anti-Obama signs, and anti-tax signs, one that said "God helps those that help themselves," and another that said "Buy your own d**n health insurance," an obvious reference to those millions who cannot afford health insurance today, and either rely on state assistance or simply go without.
I am always troubled by the conservative mantra that everyone in America should "pull themselves up by their boot straps." The people who say this sort of thing are often those who are doing just fine and who wouldn't have any idea how to help themselves were they in some of the positions that poor people find themselves in. For instance, I was in an attorney's office the other day and I noted that one of the secretaries was the attorney's daughter and one of the other attorneys was his son, most probably sent through law school on daddy's dime.
It is often (usually?) the case that those who demand others behave in a certain way are either unable to act that way themselves, or are completely oblivious to how difficult it is for many to achieve the comfortable status they have been handed by someone else. For instance, would the attorney's son and daughter be in such fortunate jobs had they been born in an inner city to immigrant parents or been raised by a single mother working three jobs just to make ends meet? Had they been in such circumstances, probably without access to good (or any) health care, would they even live to adulthood?
I contemplated this as I read an editorial in today's New York Times which alerted me to something of which I was unaware: home health care aides are often not paid minimum wage because of a 2007 Supreme Court decision upholding a pre-Reagan 1975 federal labor regulation defining them as "companions." Because of that one word definition, agencies that employ such aides do not have to pay them minimum wage or overtime. Apparently, the Supreme Court said that the labor department could change this regulation, but it has yet to act.
Having just spent 18 months helping two terminally ill parents, and seeing first hand the work that home health aides do, I was appalled to read about this decision and the failure of the labor department to act to protect these workers. Yet for most Americans, who have never had need of the services of a home health aide, this reality means nothing.
Conservatives would, I believe, simply accept that home health aides deserve the label of "companion," and thus do not merit the minimum wage (of course, conservatives do not think the minimum wage is a good idea; they are bigger fans of the maximum wage, as in "how high can my salary go?"). Then again, how one lifts oneself by one's bootstraps, when one can't even make enough to live with the assistance of federal food stamps, I don't know. I can imagine that many conservatives think of home health aides as glorified babysitters, sitting in a home while an elderly person naps peacefully, helping themselves to food found in the person's refrigerator, and watching their favorite daytime television show.
They would be profoundly mistaken.
Home health aides kept my father company, yes, singing to him, telling him stories and being there for his every need, because there was no one else to keep him company when my mother and I were at one of her many doctor, lab, and hospital appointments to treat her leukemia. I couldn't be in three places at once – driving my mother to appointments, running errands each day, and being at home with ill parents. Neighbors weren't interested in sitting for an hour or more with a man who had difficulty communicating. Mostly retired people, they were too busy playing golf, bridge, or poker. So we had to rely on paid help.
But these ministering angels did more than just keep my father company; they prevented him from falling, or picked him up when he did fall, even though most of them were just over five feet tall, while my father measured over six feet. They cooked meals for my father and mother, often having to chop up foods very finely, or puree them so my father, who couldn't chew and had difficulty swallowing, could swallow them. They bathed him, dressed him, and fed him. (Feeding him a meal could take one to two hours.)
They took him to the bathroom, lifted him out of his chair, and in the last few months, changed his diapers and turned him every two hours in his bed, as he had developed a bed sore while in the hospital and could not turn himself. They continued this two hour cycle of turning even at night, so they often got very little sleep.
They did all of this while keeping up with the laundry and the cleaning. My father had difficulty swallowing, so he drooled constantly. This meant several changes of clothes a day and daily moppings of the floors and wiping furniture. When my father became incontinent, it meant bed linens had to be changed frequently, along with diapers.
They sat by his bedside in his final days and talked and sang to him. They swabbed his dry mouth with sponges when he could no longer swallow. They repositioned him when he was uncomfortable, a task that took considerable skill considering he could do nothing to help them.
These aides are the most unselfish, caring people I have ever met and they deserve much more than minimum wage. Many are from foreign countries where they learn how to care for the elderly and the dying because there are no nursing homes in their native countries, or the few that exist are unaffordable for most people. Caring for their elderly relatives is something they simply expect to do. They will do it for their parents, and they believe their children will do it for them.
Here in America, that kind of family care is rare except in some immigrant communities, most families having neither the time nor inclination to help their elderly parents. So they put them in nursing homes or hire home health aides (if they can afford it or if they have been smart enough to purchase long term care insurance.)
Here in the land of opportunity, the Supreme Court and the labor department have decided Americans who make good money should be able to hire cheap help for their elderly relatives no matter how hard the home health aides have to work, no matter how unpleasant their tasks.
A society that so devalues the home health aides that they are unwilling to demand the payment of a living wage for their services, also devalues the elderly people they care for. We pay higher wages for what we consider important, after all. A meal at an expensive restaurant, a vacation at an elegant resort, a designer suit, a car that looks like a tank, a spa bathroom, or a mini-mansion with far more square footage than anyone but a fraternity needs, are all things we are willing to pay exorbitant prices for. But we don't want to pay a decent salary to those loving and generous women who make our parents and grandparents comfortable in their final days and do work that we ourselves would never want to do. Shame on us!
If I could change the law, I would have these women (and they are mostly women) paid what many bank and finance company CEOs are paid, and classify the CEOs as "companions" who merely baby-sit (and often lose or outright steal) other people's money.
All content © 2005 outragedcitizen.com
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