New California Law Exempts State In-Home Care Workers, But Not Private Ones
ROSEVILLE (CBS13) — While Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law guaranteeing full- and part-time workers up to three paid sick days a year, there's a portion of the California workforce that's not included.
The bill exempts paid sick leave for in-home healthcare workers with the state or counties, but private employers say they will feel the ramifications as well.
Around 400,000 state in-home supportive services caregivers were left out, only giving paid sick leave to private in-home healthcare companies like Craig Cares in Roseville.
Owner Craig Falk says there's still a problem.
"At some point it gets too expensive for people to pay for it," he said.
Falk says while his 100 employees do qualify for paid sick leave under the bill, the cost to him must be passed on to his clients who usually can't afford it.
"I'm worried, of course, as a businessman, how it affects my business but its also really bad for these seniors who want to stay in their homes," he said. "And it's also not good for the caregivers. We are losing jobs over this."
Falk fears more clients will now turn to the state for in-home caregivers which he says will pit privately and publicly funded in-home healthcare against each other.
"It's just patently unfair to his own employees to not be granted those benefits and likewise it's unfair to every other provider of home care that we are required to," he said.
The law will go into effect next July.
