Au pairs to share $65.5M from suit
Child care workers say wages kept low
DENVER — Young people from around the world who provided low-cost child care for American families will share in a proposed $65.5 million settlement of a lawsuit brought by a dozen former au pairs against the companies that bring the workers to the United States.
Nearly 100,000 au pairs, mostly women, who worked in American homes over the last decade will be entitled to payment under the proposed settlement filed in Denver federal court Wednesday, a month before the case brought by a dozen former au pairs from Colombia, Australia, Germany, South Africa and Mexico was set to go to trial.
They claimed the companies authorized to bring au pairs to the U.S. colluded to keep their wages low, ignoring overtime and state minimum wage laws, and treating the federal minimum wage for au pairs as a maximum amount they could earn. In some cases, the lawsuit said, families pushed the limits of their duties, requiring au pairs to do tasks such as feed backyard chickens, help families move and do gardening, and not allowing them to eat with the family.
“This settlement, the hardfought victory of our clients who fought for years on behalf of about 100,000 fellow au pairs, will be perhaps the largest settlement ever on behalf of minimum wage workers and will finally give au pairs the opportunity to seek higher wages and better working conditions,” said David Seligman, director of Denver-based Towards Justice, which filed the suit in 2014. It was later litigated by New York-based Boies Schiller Flexner.
Lawyers now need to track down people who came to the U.S. to work as au pairs on J-1 visas between Jan. 1, 2009, and Oct. 28, 2018, and they have set up a website to help spread the word about the deal.
While sometimes confused with nannies, au pairs have less experience and earn a lot less.
The program, overseen by the U.S. State Department, was launched as a cultural exchange program in 1986 as demand for child care grew. At first there were 3,000 participants as part of a pilot, but last year there were over 20,000. The program
occupies a gray area between work and an international relations effort, and critics say that makes it ripe for abuse.
The sponsors said they were just following State Department regulations — which last adjusted au pair pay to $195.75 for a 45-hour work week in 2009 after the federal minimum wage rose to $7.25. Their hourly wage, however, has actually been $4.25: Families were told to deduct 40 percent of their pay to cover the room and board they’re required to provide the au pairs, a practice challenged by the lawsuit.
The sponsors contended it’s not a work program, pointing out that au pairs have cultural exchange J-1 visas, not work visas.
They have touted au pairs as a cheaper, flexible option for child care since they are paid the same amount regardless of how many children they care for, unlike at child care centers where parents pay a fee for each child. In court filings, they argued requiring families to pay more in states with higher minimum wages would destroy the program by making au pairs unaffordable, hurting its foreign policy goals.
The practice of having au pairs — French for “on par with” — developed in postwar Europe, where young people lived with families in other countries to learn a language in exchange for helping with child care and some housework. In Europe, au pairs generally are limited to working 30 hours a week.
Sarah Azuela said the ad she saw her final year of college in Mexico promised that coming to the U.S. to work as an au pair would be the best year of her life, full of travel, meeting people and becoming part of an American family. But she said what grew into a two-year stay turned out to be the worst time of her life, with her feeling like a slave subject to the whims of her host families.
At her last placement — working for a single mother in Virginia — Ms. Azuela said that in addition to helping care for three children, she cooked all the meals, cleaned the house, planted flowers and helped the family move twice.
Nevertheless, Ms. Azuela was grateful that her host mother gave her time to study for a business certificate at a university, which led her to extend her stay, and for not yelling or threatening to hit her as a previous host had done.
The settlement comes amid a movement to protect the rights of domestic workers, who were originally excluded from federal labor protections. Eight states have passed domestic worker bills of rights, and two lawmaker said they plan to introduce a bill to create a national version in Congress.