RI House votes to make domestic workers real employees. Here's what that means

Rhode Island House lawmakers Thursday voted to extend labor protections and the state's $13-an-hour minimum wage to maids, nannies, butlers, cleaning ladies, au pairs, gardeners and other domestic workers sometimes referred to as "the help."

Legislation from Pawtucket Democratic Rep. Leonela Felix that would end the longstanding exemption from state employer laws for "any individual employed in domestic service or in or about a private home" passed 56 to 12.

It overcame opposition from lawmakers, including most House Republicans, who said they were concerned it would cause people who pay workers for part-time, informal or irregular jobs to not pay them at all.

"What we are going to do is get them fired," said Rep. David Place, R-Burrillville, "because their employers can't maintain the legal liability to keep them on the books."

Place said the requirement that employers keep three years of payroll records, and the fines levied if they don't, would have a strong disincentive effect.

"The exemption was put in place [not] because we didn't want to pay these maids a living wage, but because of the regulatory burden that is now falling on these employers," he said.

Place was one of three representatives who cited a grandparent's work as a domestic servant many decades ago as support for their argument. (Education Committee and state Democratic Party Chairman Joseph McNamara and Cranston Republican Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung, who both voted for the bill, were the others.)

House GOP leader Michael Chippendale said the bill further "blurs the line" between independent contractor and employee on some jobs.

"This seems to call in the housekeeper, the babysitter, the kid who is helping hay the fields, helping to cut the grass," Chippendale said about concerns they would be treated as formal employees.

Rep. Charlene Lima said undocumented workers being paid under the table would see their pay drop if they were paid minimum wage.

But supporters of the proposal said the bill, which removes a 12-word exemption, does not change the definition of who is an employee versus an independent contractor. That is set by the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act, House labor Committee Chairman Arthur Corvese and Felix said.

"This just creates that floor for them to be able to make some amount of money that is consistent with every other worker and creates equal pay for equal work," Felix said.

House Majority Leader Chris Blazejewski said the change would allow domestic employees who meet all the other definitions of employee to be treated as employees under the law.

"We are correcting a contradiction and really an injustice in the law," Blazejewski said. "We are not redefining the employee-employer relationship at all."

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: House votes to require minimum wage, protections for domestic help