Assisted living members can find reports and background on issues impacting their workforce.

The Cost of Frontline Turnover in Long-Term Care, October 2004
This issue brief from the Better Jobs, Better Care program, a program of AAHSA's Institute for the Future of Aging Services, concludes that aging services organizations pay an estimated $3,500 to replace a direct care worker who leaves. This report details what is known about turnover costs among the direct care workforce, presents a framework for measuring them, and explains why they are important to track. Turnover among frontline workers is a critical cost driver for the long-term care industry, affecting the fiscal health of providers, the quality of care that long-term care consumers receive, and the efficiency of resource allocation within the public payer system. The potential magnitude of these costs, and the fact that key elements of the total cost of turnover are not visible or easily measured, lead to important implications for practice and policy, and for future research.

NLRB Reverses Itself; Holds Weingarten No Longer Applies To Non-Union Employees [link to legal section, link to come]
In a June 9 decision, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) reversed a prior decision and held that, unlike union employees, non-union employees are not entitled to have a representative present in an investigatory interview that could lead to disciplinary action. The Board concluded that, in the absence of a union relationship, the right of an employee to a co-worker's presence is outweighed by the employer's right to conduct a thorough, efficient and confidential investigation.

Department of Labor Final Overtime Regulations
The U.S. Dept. of Labor (DOL) announced April 20 the release of final regulations governing exemptions from the overtime requirements of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Hailed by Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao as a "win" for workers, the final regulations, published in the April 23 edition of the Federal Register, differ significantly from proposed regulations issued by the DOL in July, 2003 and guarantee overtime for a wider range of employees.