George Rebane

If it weren’t really happening, no one would believe it.  Well, actually a progressive would readily believe and promote it since they’re doing it now.  According to our Senator Doug LaMalfa, the idiots in Sacramento are pushing through a law (AB889) that would essentially do away with another job category in California, and further restrict liberty in a state that is already at the bottom of the US individual liberties pile.  The good senator reports –

Under AB 889, household “employers” (aka “parents”) who hire a babysitter on a Friday night will be legally obligated to pay at least minimum wage to any sitter over the age of 18 (unless it is a family member), provide a substitute caregiver every two hours to cover rest and meal breaks, in addition to workers’ compensation coverage, overtime pay, and a meticulously calculated timecard/paycheck. Failure to abide by any of these provisions may result in a legal cause of action against the employer including cumulative penalties, attorneys’ fees, legal costs and expenses associated with hiring expert witnesses, an unprecedented measure of legal recourse provided no other class of workers – from agricultural laborers to garment manufacturers. (On the bright side, language requiring an hour of paid vacation time for every 30 hours worked was amended out of the bill in the Senate.)

[Addendum]  Lest the real point of AB889 is lost, let me add that this new law will criminalize a large family of economic behaviors that have benefitted households since time immemorial.  The law will apply to all household help where a paid non-family member provides personal services to another person.  Babysitting is just the tip of this insane iceberg.

The major impact will be on families that have care-needy members who are ill, disabled, aged, and/or demented.  No longer will tens of thousands of such families be able to afford to have a trusted person come in for a few hours to help or relieve a family care-giver.  The entire employment situation will now have to be treated as if one was running a business with all the attendant worker dispensations, benefits, and payroll overheads added on.

IMHO this bill is simply evil for what devastation it will wreak in the lives of people already burdened by the natural infirmities that will visit all of us.  And here we come to another example of the extreme stupidity that lies at the heart of any socialistic nanny state.