Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/24680
Last February, after a four-year battle, Irene won a court settlement for an undisclosed amount. Once again, DWU had shown itself to be at the vanguard of a grow- ing, innovative global movement to organize private household workers. It’s not an easy task: Such workers are among the most challenging to find and talk to, let alone unionize. They labor in individual homes rather than larger workplaces, frequently change employers, speak a polyglot of languages, and are often undocumented, mak- ing them wary of outsiders. They’re without an umbrella of la- bor protection as well. When the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Na- tional Labor Relations Act were passed in the 1930s as part of the land- mark New Deal legislation, domestic and agricultural workers were pur- posefully excluded—because Southern congressmen insisted on control over “their” African American labor force. New Deal supporters acquiesced. In fact, President Roosevelt responded to FLSA opponents in 1938, who claimed the bill would require em- ployers to “pay your Negro girl 11 dollars a week,” with the assurance that “no law ever suggested intended a minimum wages and hours bill to ap- ply to domestic help.” Domestic workers thus were not guaranteed the rights to minimum wage, overtime pay and collective bargaining that were afforded other U.S. workers. facing mounting challenges as a result of free trade and mobile capital. DWU organizers are modeling alternative strategies. Instead of going into workplaces and getting employees to sign union cards, DWU organizers converge on New York playgrounds to meet other domestic workers and pass out buttons, brochures and flyers, then sit down to chat with them. DWU directly assists workers like Irene by publi- cizing their cases and pushing for judicial remedies. The group has won more than $450,000 in back wages for domestic workers through the 20- plus lawsuits it has brought against exploitative employers. CLEANING, COOKING AND CARING FOR A DISABLED BOY. HER WAGES: 72 HOURS A WEEK— IRENE WORKED AN AVERAGE OF LESS THAN $2 AN HOUR. Nor were they championed by the 20th-century labor movement. The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (now the AFL- CIO), in the first half of the 20th century, tolerated segre- gation and discrimination among their member unions, as well as the exclusion of women, African Americans and other people of color. Equally important, major U.S. unions have long favored manufacturing over service- sector workers, full-timers over part-timers, skilled over unskilled workers and steady over intermittent workers— job categories where white men tend to dominate. Nonetheless, domestic workers do have a long history of organizing. They formed associations in the 1930s and again in the 1960s and 1970s. The most recent campaigns have come at a propitious moment: The mainstream labor movement is in crisis, battling declining membership and www.msmagazine.com DWU uses another novel strategy: It takes pay and benefit negotiations straight to state and local legislatures, bypassing employers altogether. The group has gotten legislation passed in Nassau County (in Long Island) and New York City requiring employ- ment agencies to inform domestic workers of their rights and employers of their responsibilities. Now, DWU is pushing for a precedent-setting New York state Domestic Worker Bill of Rights that will guarantee household em- ployees such basic rights as over- time pay, paid sick leave and holidays, and cost-of-living raises. “The Domestic Workers Bill of Rights is a model for innovative la- bor laws to protect vulnerable and informal sector workers,” says Ai-jen Poo, the lead organ- izer of DWU. And the bill’s impact could reverberate well beyond the boundaries of New York state. As Assembly- member Keith Wright, sponsor of the bill, explains: “We are hoping that this legislation will become a model for similar laws throughout the country.” is extreme, but not unusual. Because domestic workers labor alone, out of the public eye, they are particularly vulnerable to poor treatment. DWU’s survey of domestic workers in New York City found that one-third had expe- rienced verbal or physical abuse. IRENE’S CASE OF EMPLOYER ABUSE And because domestic workers still lack the basic pro- tections accorded other workers, they are often stiffed on pay and benefits. African American women domestic FALL 2009 | 39