A Twenty-First Century Organizing Model: Lessons from the New York Domestic Workers Bill of Rights Campaign

Children and families march on behalf of domestic workers, June 2009.

Domestic Workers United

The August 31, 2010 landmark signing of the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights by New York State Governor David Paterson recognizes New York's domestic workforce and establishes basic labor standards. The first legislation of its kind in the country, the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights provides: overtime pay of time-and-a-half of workers' regular rate of pay (after forty hours for live-out workers and after forty-four hours for live-in workers); protection from discrimination and harassment; a minimum of one day of rest per week; and a minimum of three days of paid leave per year.

This decree affects more than two hundred thousand women, most of whom are immigrants of color who labor as nannies, housekeepers, and companions for the elderly. Prior to the movement that led up to the legislation's passage, domestic workers were excluded from labor laws and largely invisible—the question asked was whether they should be covered by labor law at all. Today, there are two questions asked: how will the new benefits and protections be enforced, and how might they be extended to domestic workers nationwide?

The World of Work Inside the Home

Domestic workers—who care for our families and our homes—are among the most vulnerable workers in the United States. There are an estimated 2.5 million women who labor as domestic workers. In the New York metropolitan area alone, they leave their homes early in the morning, often in the dark, in order to arrive at their work sites before their employers depart for work. Some live in their employers' homes, caring for these families throughout the day and night. The more hours these women spend working in their employers' homes, the fewer hours they have to care for their own homes and families. Many domestic workers have had to leave their children behind in their home nations. While the entire economy rests on their work, their labor has long been taken for granted.

Because women's work in the home has never been factored into national labor statistics, it is difficult to quantify the economic contributions of this workforce. We can estimate these workers' contributions by imagining what would happen if they withheld their labor. If domestic workers went on strike, they could paralyze almost every industry in urban areas. Doctors, lawyers, bankers, professors, small business owners, civil sector employees, and media executives would all be affected. The entire urban economy would quiver.

Domestic workers also make crucial contributions to the economies in their home nations. In a recent survey of domestic workers in New York, conducted by DataCenter and Domestic Workers United, researchers found that 98 percent of domestic workers are foreign-born and that 59 percent are the primary income earners for their families. These women migrate to the United States in search of work and—upon their arrival—find that domestic work is one of the only professions available to them. Remittances from domestic work are a central source of revenue for many nations in the Global South. In the early part of the twentieth century, most of the nation's domestic workers and farm workers were African-American. When the New Deal's labor legislation was being debated in the 1930s, Southern members of Congress—who feared the emergence of an African-American labor movement—blocked the inclusion of farm workers and domestic workers in federal labor laws.

Even if domestic workers were included in labor laws, the structure of the industry makes it difficult to organize workers or enforce basic labor standards. Their workplaces are unmarked private homes. The terms of employment and working conditions are negotiated house by house. With no clear standards or laws to ensure basic rights, workers have to negotiate the terms of their employment individually, day by day, in situations where they lack any real bargaining power. More often than not, workers risk losing their...