OK – So this received VERY limited coverage, but it opens the door for countless changes and episodes in our industry. I’m sure we’ll be hearing LOTS more as the enforcement of this new law kicks in…

Governor Paterson signs into law the nation’s first domestic workers’ bill of rights – NYPOST.com.

An expose tonight on the modern day slave trade hits too close to home for our industry. Please become aware of this ongoing problem so you can recognize and report any abuses you might see in your community of domestic help.

Around 15,000 domestic workers are brought to Britain by foreign families every year, and hundreds later run away after being mistreated.

Kalayaan, a charity based in west London, helps around 350 migrant workers who have been forced into slavery each year. Around 20 per cent of them report having been physically assaulted by their employers.

A spokeswoman for the charity said: “We’ve had cases of people being burned with irons by their employers, being threatened with knives, having boiling water thrown at them.

“And two thirds of domestic workers report that they have been psychologically abused, which means they have been threatened, they’ve been humiliated, they’ve been shouted at constantly. Called dog, donkey, stupid, illiterate. Being constantly criticised and humiliated is deeply traumatising for people.

One former slave from West Africa, identified as Patience, said she was kept captive by a British solicitor who was a member of the law society and a specialist adviser to a number of London charities.

She claimed she had been made to work 120 hours a week for three years and was regularly beaten.

“I was not allowed to go out. I was not allowed to make friends. I was not allowed to do things without permission. I didn’t have anyone to talk to,” she said.

“She would pinch me, she would slap me, should would do anything. Just name it. She beat me from upstairs to downstairs. It was just too much for me to bear.”

Patience escaped after a neighbour who spoke to her over the garden fence agreed to help her run away. She has since won an employment tribunal against her former employer who has also been convicted of assault.

Read more and get the TV listing here, via Foreign diplomats abusing immunity to keep domestic slaves in Britain – Telegraph.

We are re-releasing our book in digital format for anyone who does not have it. It will be available for a limited time for just $7.99 as we prepare our new report, “Household Staffing Secrets Revealed”.

The Domestic service industry is always evolving and we’re here to help everyone keep up with the changes. Our first book,The Insider’s Guide to Household Staffing, was published in 2002 and continues to provide an exceptional look at the fundamentals of hiring staff from the perspectives of Employers, Job seekers, and Agencies. Our upcoming special report,Household Staffing Secrets Revealed, will bring new and bold information from behind the scenes of the domestic agency business, again covering invaluable, current trends and information for employees and employers alike. This will be the “must have” information for private service providers and their employers over the next several years.

Currently, while the new report is being finished, we are offering a downloadable version of The Insider’s Guide to Household Staffing at a substantial discount.

We hope you enjoy the information presented in our books and reports!

via Domestic Placement Network Digital Content.

Or you can order and download immediately here for just $7.99:

I wonder what the real numbers are – Does your household or employer’s household pay all appropriate taxes and the correct employment status?

Here’s a budget-plumping idea: enforcing the nanny tax.

The tax applies to anyone employing a worker in their household to whom they pay more than $1,700 a year. That goes for housekeepers, nannies, and healthcare workers. The tax calls for withholding 15.3% a year to cover Medicaid and Social Security payments.

The problem is, hardly anybody pays it.

Two years ago, about 219,000 households filed the required Schedule H that goes along with the payments. That’s down from about 500,000 in 1994, reports columnist and Syracuse University lecturer David Johnston. He used  a thesis by U-Mass Amherst graduate student Catherine Haskins as a springboard into the issue.

So, are that many fewer people hiring household help?

No way. Johnston says the paperwork has become too complicated to fill out, and many people can’t afford to pay the taxes. The biggest evaders are those who make less than $31,000 a year, he says. He also says more nannies are setting themselves up as businesses, exempting themselves from the tax.

But here’s another explanation: the workers themselves, who often are all too happy to take wages under the table. Many people who hire help say their employees beg them not to pay the tax, not least so they can pocket the difference. Those pleas have doubtless become louder since our economic meltdown began.

An interesting tidbit: Haskins reports that more than 2% of tax filers who pay nanny taxes pay more than $200,000 a year for domestic help. In other words, if you have a retinue of servants, you probably have a payroll system already set up to take care of complicated paperwork like Schedule Hs.

Nanny-Tax Shirking Is Growing : Planet Money : NPR.

I would surely like to see the employment generated by this home’s rebuild! The former staff of 100 must have had beautifully divided and specialized service roles and the talent of artists to maintain such extravagance of the era.

The graceful fountain that welcomed hundreds of well-heeled visitors, President Franklin Roosevelt among them, was dismantled and sold years ago. Its once meticulously sculpted French gardens are overgrown with weeds and vines. The classical Indiana limestone facade may have lost its luster but its poise still remains — at least from the other side of rusted wrought iron gates that keep the curious at bay.Like other Gilded Age palaces of the nation’s pre-Depression industrial titans, Lynnewood Hall is a relic of a bygone era facing an uncertain future. Will it befall the same fate as neighboring Whitemarsh Hall, the demolished mansion of banking magnate Edward Stotesbury? Or will it be returned to former glory, like industrialist Alfred I. duPont’s former Nemours Mansion in Delaware?

via Regal ruins: palatial mansion near Philly crumbles – Yahoo! News.

Here’s some fantastic news from the government doing something right. I assume we won’t hear this one on the major news circuit, but I must applaud the efforts directed toward this lowest form of human criminality.

Department of Homeland Security DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano today launched the “Blue Campaign”—a DHS-wide initiative to combat human trafficking through enhanced public awareness, victim assistance programs, and law enforcement training and initiatives.“The battle against human trafficking is a shared responsibility involving the Department’s federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement partners, non-profit and non-governmental organizations, governments around the world and communities across the nation,” said Secretary Napolitano. “With the Blue Campaign, we seek to shine a light on a crime that thrives in the shadows, bring traffickers to justice, and assist victims in communities across the nation.”The Blue Campaign was officially launched today by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas, Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Deputy Director Ken Keene and Alice Hill, Senior Counselor to Secretary Napolitano—underscoring the unified effort to prevent human trafficking, assist victims and hold traffickers accountable by bringing together the Department’s diverse resources and expertise under one initiative.

via DHS: Secretary Napolitano Launches First-Of-Its-Kind Campaign to Combat Human Trafficking.

Another major Heiress scandal emerges – partly revealed by the trusted Household Staff. I am sure we’ll be hearing quite a bit about this case as it unfolds. I wonder what everyone thinks about the dilemma – does the Butler’s privacy and discretion take a back seat to the massive international fraud and tax evasion of an employer? Does this level of financial maneuver happen often in our clients homes and businesses?

Behind the scenes, it emerged in recent weeks, the former family butler played an enormous role, secretly recording the faint voice of Mrs. Bettencourt in conversation with her entourage over the clatter of porcelain and silver spoons.

Those discussions — which lawyers said ultimately filled 28 computer discs and meandered from tax-dodging strategies, cash gifts, political donations and shell companies — are roiling the upstairs world of high-paid financial advisors and well-connected politicians up to the minister of social affairs, Éric Woerth. A former budget minister, he is fighting for his political life amid conflict of interest accusations because his wife was a financial advisor to Mrs. Bettencourt.

The butler, Pascal Bonnefoy, 47, recorded conversations up until May when he resigned from his position. Earlier, in February, he visited his attorney, Antoine Gillot, and placed a small, inexpensive digital recorder on his desk.

“I was stupefied,” Mr. Gillot said, as he listened to recordings, which he said also included discussions with one of Mrs. Bettencourt’s advisers who asked for cash as a gift that could be funneled to a contact in Switzerland to buy a boat for himself.

via A Fight Over the Legacy and Image of the L’Oreal Heiress – NYTimes.com.

Can someone please call us with the contact person for staffing at this new owner’s pile? Thanks!

Photo from Coldwell Banker Previews Intl.

real estate experts are paying close attention to the recent sale of Le Belvedere, a sprawling sandstone palace in Bel Air, which sold on June 4 to an unidentified European family, for as much as $72 million.

The home was designed and built by developer Mohamed Hadid, former owner of Ritz Carlton Hotels, for his personal use. Hadid put the home on the market in early 2009 at $85 million, but the price was quickly cut to $72 million. By early May of this year, when Forbes produced its list of the most expensive homes on the market, the estate had been put into the escrow stage of a sale.

via America’s Most Expensive Mansion Sells – Yahoo! Real Estate.

In NYC it looks like domestic workers are going to have some government help via new laws. In many states, worker’s rights are already protected to some degree, but this will make a very public stance on the issue. As a professional employee, it is your right and duty to know the laws concerning your employment, and enter any work agreement carefully.

nannies, as well as other domestic workers who make possible the lives of New York’s eternally striving work force, have long gone without basic workplace guarantees that most employees take for granted.That appears likely to change soon.The State Senate this week passed a bill that would require paid holidays, sick days and vacation days for domestic workers, along with overtime wages. It would require 14 days’ notice, or termination pay, before firing a domestic worker.The Assembly passed a similar measure last year, and lawmakers expect that the two versions will be reconciled and that Gov. David A. Paterson will sign what they say would be the nation’s first such protections for domestic workers. It would affect an estimated 200,000 workers in the metropolitan area: citizens, legal immigrants and those here illegally as well.

via New York Expected to Give Protections to Nannies – NYTimes.com.