Au pair Pay

I consider the proposed payment to be really quite enough, I also want to invite an au pair student. By the way, is it worth doing? how do you think can a student take a good care of your children?
 
I made a few local enquiries during the week regarding au-pairs and their work. There seems to be a pretty wide gap between those who treat their au-pairs well and those who just want childcare that costs as little as possible. The use of au-pairs is much greater than I thought. Nearly every road on Mortgage Mountain has an au-pair or two. Husband/Wife/Partner are all working fulltime in jobs outside of the home in each of the houses I am talking about. The au-pair gets €100.00 per week "spending money" + accommodation for their efforts. In several of the houses the au-pair lasts about two weeks (sometimes less) before terminating her arrangement. With the unemployment situation is some countries the foreign au-pair has little or no choice. I've heard one parent say "I don't have €100 spending money for myself." Also, the amount of hours worked and job-description might not be what I was informed. I wonder does the au-pair who looks after five children get paid the same as those who look after one child.

Like somebody said earlier, we're paying our plumber more for a looking after a washing-machine than we are with somebody looking after our children. The abuse of the au-pair is much greater than most of us realise. Some treat the au-pair well, but unfortunately there are the usual freeloading parents. The current situation could not continue. A test case informs us that one former au-pair must be compensated by ten grand for just a few months work. The newspapers informed us last Thursday that there were forty more cases from au-pairs pending. I bet the figure next Thursday will be much larger. If I were employing an au-pair, I would be very worried if I were blatently underpaying her. The au-pair now has avenues that can hurt her employer. Rightly so!

One of the parents informed me that the current situation will drive the hiring of au-pairs under the radar i.e. employing au-pairs from outside of the EU. This begs the question will they have the same rights as those hired from within the EU.

Let's turn the table now. Maria-José arrives from Spain, acquires employment as an au-pair, looks after children and takes notes of the hours she is working and the duties required of her etc. She is being paid €100 per week + accommodation. A year down the road she approaches a solicitor (no doubt the legal profession are in for a killing here) and suddenly Maria-José is in line for quite some back-money. She's back in Spain and a solicitor is now dealing for her. There are two winners here, (i) the legal profession and (ii) Maria-José.
 

The fundamental error in your logic there is that you are assuming that an au pair "acquires an employment". Let's be very clear; the WRC isn't the courts and one WRC decision does not mean every au pair in the country is suddenly an employee.

Whether or not there is an employment will be a question of the facts in an individual case, but I believe that if/when this goes before a court, domestic or EU, the decision will not be one that renders all au pairs considered workers who are in employment.

At risk of starting to sound like a broken record, this is not just an Irish issue, au pairs operate all across the world and as far as I know they aren't considered employees in other countries either.

I believe that if the facts demonstrate that:
the primary purpose of the au pair being there is to learn the language and culture, that they are treated as one of the family, and that the work they do is consistent with that status rather than some kind of indentured labourer, there won't be an issue.

Certainly, some au pairs are being exploited for cheap labour, and there should and will be consequences for the exploiters in those cases, but thankfully the world is not black and white (well, not speaking for you Leper, as it appears gloriously monochromatic where you are at times). There is a spectrum / continuum available for one to consider, and I'll have a decent wager a bona fide non-exploitative au pair arrangement will safely fall into the non-employment end of that spectrum.
 
We have made the decision here to draft formal contracts. One a contract of employment for min wage and another rent a room contract charging less than the narket rate for the rooms.
Our lady is finished her English classes and wants to stay on with our family so technically not an au pair anymore anyway. In the contract we are going to give her the title of nanny
 

That's probably wise if she doesn't really fit the definition of an au pair any longer. You'll need to register as an employer for operation of PAYE on her pay, and you'd better check out other obligations that will go with the change in status - insurance, health & safety etc...
 

I hope you are right Jon, because if you are not right many families will be "claimed" out of existence.
 
Leper said:
I hope you are right Jon, because if you are not right many families will be "claimed" out of existence.
Click to expand...

Personally I feel Jon has hit the nail on the head, one case in the WRC that defines that au-pair as an employee doesn't make all au-pairs employees.
The au-pair helper/employee issue has been around for a long time now and the only time it makes the news is when we have a case of an au-pair been exploited by the family she is helping which was the case last week.
In reference to the OP, they aren't exploiting their au-pair from the info they have provided but I would think the room & board rate was a bit on the high side.
Going forward I would suggest that as you are only intending on paying minimum wage you don't exploit her on the "rent a room" rate as she is providing you with a service that would cost a lot more then the rate you are paying her if you employed an agency nanny
 
I heard an ad on the radio for The Sinday Business Post, they will be covering this issue today.
 
"Domestic work is generally accepted to include cleaning, cooking, laundry, child-minding, care of elderly or sick family members, gardening and maintenance, driving, and any other duties relating to a household. The use of designations such as 'Au Pair' or other descriptions of arrangements between consenting parties do not in themselves mean that a person working in a home is not an employee under Irish law."

[broken link removed]
 

When that is contained in a high court ruling I'll agree with it. To be fair to the WRC they probably made the only decision they could in the circumstances, as there is an absence of case law for guidance.

I note once again however, the WRC start from the point where it is established that the au pair is in employment- now I'm not an employment law expert but it's not at all clear to me that there is an employment relationship.

The ILO convention quite clearly applies only to cases where there is an employment relationship:
  • (a) the term domestic work means work performed in or for a household or households;
  • (b) the term domestic worker means any person engaged in domestic work within an employment relationship;
  • (c) a person who performs domestic work only occasionally or sporadically and not on an occupational basis is not a domestic worker.
 
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A friend of mine had an au-pair for 3 months. She was useless, didn't look after the kids very well, did no housework and went out most nights with her friends and therefore couldn't get up in the morning. They were afraid to get rid of her but were delighted when she left. I'm sure they are not unique.
 
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