Evelyn Coke
“Year in and year out, Evelyn Coke left her Queens house early to go to the homes of elderly, sick, often dying people. She bathed them, cooked for them, helped them dress and monitored their medications. She sometimes worked three consecutive 24-hour shifts,” starts an article in yesterday’s New York Times.
“She loved the work, but she earned only around $7 an hour and got no overtime pay,” the article continues. “For years Ms. Coke, a single mother of five, quietly grumbled, and then, quite uncharacteristically, rebelled. In a case that reached the Supreme Court in 2007, Ms. Coke sued to reverse federal labor regulations that exempt home care agencies from having to pay overtime.”
Ms. Coke was 74.
The obituary made note of the letters sent by senators and members of the house asking U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis to eliminate the exemption.
The Senate letter mentioned Coke by name, noting: “Evelyn Coke, who took a case all the way to the Supreme Court, spent two decades working more than 40 hours a week caring for others,” the senators wrote. “Yet, when she suffered from kidney failure, she could not afford a health care worker to take care of her.”
“Evelyn Coke’s courage was the inspiration for the DCA’s campaign to fix the FLSA exemption,” says DCA Executive Director Leonila Vega. “Her passing renews our commitment to addressing this gross injustice, whereby millions of hard working Americans are left out of basic minimum labor protections. There is no better way to honor Evelyn Coke than for policymakers to improve the lives of home care workers by amending the companionship definition.”
