On September 26, 2013, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill, A.B. 241, to give overtime pay to domestic workers such as caregivers, childcare providers, and housekeepers who work in private homes.

The bill enacts California Labor Code Sections 1450-1454 and will take effect on January 1, 2014. Under the new sections, domestic employees must be paid overtime pay at one-and-one-half times their regular pay rate after they work more than nine hours in one day or more than 45 hours in one week. The law is set to expire on January 1, 2017, unless lawmakers decide to extend it.

The new sections define “Domestic work” as “services related to the care of persons in private households or maintenance of private households or their premises.  Domestic work occupations include childcare providers, caregivers of people with disabilities, sick, convalescing, or elderly persons, house cleaners, housekeepers, maids, and other household occupations.” Accordingly, “Domestic work employee” is defined as “an individual who performs domestic work and includes live-in domestic work employees and personal attendants.”

Employers subject to California Wage Order 15 regulating Household Occupations should review their practices where the employer is relying on the Personal Attendant overtime exemption (Section 1(B)). Wage Order 15 defines “Personal attendant” as including“baby sitters and means any person employed 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.” Employers with employees exempt from overtime provisions based on the Personal Attendant exemption must determine whether the employees will still qualify.