California to Require That Employers Pay Overtime to Personal Attendants
Author: Michael Cardman, XpertHR Legal Editor
October 8, 2013
Starting next year, employers in California will have to pay overtime to personal attendants.
Personal attendants currently are exempt from California's overtime and meal and rest break requirements. But new legislation signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown establishes a new overtime requirement starting January 1, 2014, and continuing through January 1, 2017. Cal Lab Code § 1454, as enacted by 2013 Bill Text CA A.B. 241.
Personal attendant includes babysitters and means any person employed by a nonprofit public housekeeping organization, by a private householder or by any third-party employer recognized in the health care industry to work in a private household, to supervise, feed or dress a child or person who by reason of advanced age, physical disability or mental deficiency needs supervision.
The health care industry includes hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, intermediate care and residential care facilities, convalescent care institutions, home health agencies, clinics operating 24 hours per day and clinics performing surgery, urgent care, radiology, anesthesiology, pathology, neurology or dialysis.
The new overtime requirement will differ slightly from the overtime requirement that applies to most other California employees.
In California, most nonexempt employees are owed one and one-half times their regular rate of pay for all hours worked:
- In excess of 40 hours in any workweek;
- In excess of eight hours up to and including 12 hours in any workday; and
- For the first eight hours worked on the seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek.
Most nonexempt employees also are owed double their regular rate of pay for all hours worked:
- In excess of 12 hours in any workday; and
- In excess of eight hours on the seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek.
However, personal attendants will be owed one and one-half times their regular rate of pay for all hours worked beyond nine hours in any workday and for all hours worked beyond 45 hours in a workweek.