SANTA MARIA - Industries that have large workforces of hourly employees are reducing weekly hours and or limiting overtime so that employees remain under the 30 hour per week cap for part-timers covered in the Affordable Care Act also referred to as Obamacare.
Other employers are converting vacant full-time positions into part-time positions.
"I know there are employers that have been doing things like that for years", says Lawanda Lyons-Pruitt of the Santa Maria Valley chapter of the NAACP, "when you're not considered full- time, if you work under 30 hours and they keep their hours under 30 hours."
Lyons-Pruitt and the NAACP are hosting free, public town hall-style informational meetings on the Affordable Care Act this coming weekend with a panel of experts in the field on hand to answer questions, including the 30 hour a week rule for part-timers.
"People need to know (about the ACA)", Lyons-Pruitt says, "I think there's a lot of misinformation out there, people tend to believe what they hear and not what they read."
According to the Wall Street Journal, one of the industries hardest hit by the part-time rule in the ACA is long-term care facilities, rehabilitation centers and home-health agencies that rely mostly on hourly workers.
Other industries reviewing how they manage part-timers are retail, restaurants and fast-food service and grocery stores.
Although the new part-time rules don't go into effect until 2014, many employers are beginning to change working hours already, hoping to avoid the ACA's so-called "look back" period for determining which employees are considered full-time.
"If they do not provide health insurance to them (part-timers), then they are going to go over and they are going to use the hospitals, urgent care centers", Lyons-Pruitt says, "somebody is going to have to pay for it."
Under the ACA, employers have until March 1, 2013 to inform all employees about their health benefits program.
There will be two, NAACP-hosted town-hall meetings on the ACA beginning at Noon on Saturday, February 16 at the Santa Maria Public Library in the Shepard Hall.
