A Court Said Au Pairs Deserve Minimum Wage. Some Families Are Protesting | Hacker News Reader

A Court Said Au Pairs Deserve Minimum Wage. Some Families Are Protesting

nytimes.com

20 pointspseudolus17 comments

My sister had an Au Pair for a year. The Au Pair was taken on holidays with them and participated heavily on family life. Even now, years later, they still mail Christmas presents between Germany and Australia. The deal was basically that the Au Pair is included as a family member in every aspect. I feel that once you attach a minimum wage then the Au Pair is now an employee. I also see the opposite argument, where some families are abusing the system to get a low-cost worker.

Do you need to pay minimum wage and still feed them the good food that the family is eating or you can feed them the cheaper employee food? These questions become relevant now.

> I feel that once you attach a minimum wage then the Au Pair is now an employee.

The Au Pair was always an employee - whether you're paying them exploitative wages or not, they're still an employee.

>Do you need to pay minimum wage and still feed them the good food that the family is eating or you can feed them the cheaper employee food?

You never had to feed the Au Pair the same food as the rest of your family, it was just the decent thing to do. I really don't understand this concept where, just because you're no longer exploiting this employee, you now feel that that opens the door to questioning whether you should now be exploiting them as a person instead.

Who says paying below our minimum wage is exploitative? Au Pairs' income is almost entirely discretionary. Who else from say, South Africa, can stably earn $800+/month of purely discretionary income by watching a couple kids for 30-45 hours a week? The whole deal is a big step up in quality of life for many. If you raise their minimum pay, you will literally lower American demand for Au Pairs, who are generally happy with their end of the deal.

I lived with a family who had an Au Pairs who were similar ages to me at the time and got to them and their Au Pair friends quite well.

There is definitely a divide between families who do a good job of integrating and involving an Au Pair into family life and generally upholding their end of the cultural exchange bargain, and those who use Au Pairs as cheap labor.

I know of some Au Pairs whose families blatantly ignored the minimum living standards. Imagine the dehumanization of being given a converted closet to live in (as a ~25yo) with strict curfews, limited car access, and having every incurred family expense scrutinized. Meanwhile the 3 month-old baby you are looking after has a large room with blinds that are never opened because the room serves only as a sleeping nursery.

On the other hand, the family I lived with did an exceptional job of treating their Au Pair as an independent adult and integrating them into family life.

The cultural exchange aspect definitely has value, and to working Americans the system provides cheap child care. The system is worth keeping, but I'd definitely support improved protections for Au Pairs that prevent abusers from freeloading.

Its actually a lot simpler than that. If you employee someone you have to pay them minimum wage -- even if you send them a Christmas present -- because that's the law.

The current situation is an Au Pair is included as part of the family. If you're now paying minimum wage, is the Au Pair now an employee who is treated as an employee or do they still get treated as a family member?

Very true. It’s difficult to imagine someone being both included in the family and also treated with respect. I mean all my other family members work full-time jobs for me for below minimum wage, you wouldn’t want the au pair feeling left out by receiving a decent wage.

Minimum wage here is $19.49/hour. What you're suggesting is:

* Pay $739 weekly * Provide all food, plus cook for them * Provide their own room in the accommodation * Cover the costs of all their utilities (water, gas, electricity) * Take them on all holidays, etc

I know your suggestion means well but it would mean Au Pairs cease to exist. It's lose-lose. The Au Pairs here aren't coming for a poor nation to earn money from back home, they're coming over for cultural exchange. For example, my sisters Au Pair was from a wealthy German family. Maybe it's different in other countries, the article talks about Columbian Au Pairs.

Yes. I am suggesting that you stop hiding behind "they're family" and follow the law. It may be cute to you but it won't be cute when WalMart starts calling its employees "family" as well.

How does Walmart come into this? I've never even seen a Walmart in my life. I suspect the difference here is due to you being American, everything is capitalistic there. In Australia, the LAW actually allows for cultural exchange of Au Pairs. The recommendation is that an average Au Pair works 30 hours per week at the minimum wage but that the host family subtracts $350 per week for room and board (reasonable costs in Australia) and that pocket money is $200-250. So the Au Pair has in fact been paid the minimum wage.

If you cannot fathom how a human could host another human and you can only see transactions then I feel sorry for you.

Isn't an easy and reasonable response to this to charge the au pair for rent at the market rate for a single room in the neighborhood in which the family lives.

Room and board is a non-trivial portion of cost of living. Paying minimum wage and providing housing would mean an au pair makes far more than minimum wage when all is said and done.

That sort of defeats the whole purpose of what au pair programs are for, which is primarily cultural exchange, not employment. For some reason the article deftly glosses over this. The general rules for being an au pair are: you’re under 30 (depends on country of origin and country entering), your native language is different than that of the country you are visiting, and you are unmarried. The foundation of the program is you get free room/board and a small living stipend in exchange for being immersed in a culture and helping out with a family - an au pair is more like an older sibling than an employee. Or is supposed to be. Obviously there are ways a host family can abuse the system.

There are a variety of programs like this (Peace Corps and AmeriCorps come to mind) where young people are provided unique cultural opportunities at the cost of earning little to no money.

Edit: spelling.

> au pair is more like an older sibling than an employee

We all know that this is definitely not the case. You can put all sort of romantic ideals into the system. But there is a definite employer/worker relationship and au pair are not just expected to “be part of the family” but to work as cleaners/nannies and chefs. If you want the system to work as you explain it, the au pair should be completely shielded from doing any non-voulentary work at all, and it would be a completely different system.

Normal members of the family aren't shielded from doing involuntary work.

In the sense that they do not get sent out of the country for refusing to make dinner they are.

Thanks for the details here. Doesn't this mean that that au pairs filing suit here are going against the purpose of the program so long as the host family isn't abusing the system (i.e. more than ~40 hours of help a week)

Au pair is basically the way you hire a nanny if you are middle class and can't afford one. I am guessing that if minimum wage laws apply then the local governments or the feds are going to have to step in and offer some kind of child care support in addition to the childcare tax deductions we already have. It will probably be untenable. That being said you have to be rich enough to afford an au pair already. For example, we thought about an au pair when we rented in silicon valley but they need their own room. This takes you from a 2-bdrm to a 3 bdrm minimum so that's another expense. You have to weigh that cost in with the cost of full time child care as well.

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