�Long
constituting a vast secret economy in New York,� as described
by the New York Times, domestic workers won a striking victory
in righting a wrong in labor laws that has hung, like an
albatross, around the necks of hundreds of thousands of
workers.� Signing into law the Domestic Workers Bill of
Rights, New York Governor David Paterson has set in motion
a complete rethinking of the status and conditions of nearly
invisible, yet indispensable, workforce.
The gist of the legislation is more than impressive.� It
establishes an eight hour legal work day; over time at time
and a half after 40 hours for live-out domestic workers
and 44 hours for live-in domestic workers; one day of rest
in each calendar week; overtime pay on that day of rest
if the worker chooses to work; after one year of employment
three paid days off; workplace protection against discrimination,
sexual harassment, and other forms of harassment; workers
compensation; and the completion of a study by November
2010 of the feasibility of establishing organizing for collective
bargaining.
Yet the story of this victory is not contained in the magnanimity
of Governor Paterson and other leaders of the great State
of New York.� It is found in the efforts of the domestic
workers themselves, and the decade long effort to build
an organization that represents them.� Domestic Workers
United emerged out of this effort as the lead�but not exclusive�champion
of the struggle of domestic workers in New York, helping
to construct a larger coalition of other domestic worker-oriented
organizations and initiatives such as:� NY Domestic Workers Justice Coalition, Damayan Migrant Workers Association,�
Adhikaar, Unity Housecleaners, Haitian Women for Haitian
Refugees,� CAAAV-Organizing Asian Communities, Andolan-Organizing
South Asian Workers, and the Hospitality Center of Staten
Island.� DWU also played a central role
in going national with efforts that helped lead to the creation
of the National Domestic Workers Alliance.�
It is estimated that there are well over two million domestic
workers in the USA, yet they are largely ignored, at least
at the level of legislation.� When the National Labor Relations
Act was enacted in 1935 domestic workers were explicitly
excluded from the provisions of the law.� Although there
were various rationales offered at the time, during the
1930s this workforce was significantly African American
and opponents of workers� rights and racial justice were
simply not going to let Black women constitute a mighty,
organized force.
Over the years the workforce has transformed to the point
of being barely recognizable by those who once constituted
it.� According to research conducted by the Domestic Workers
United, in New York State 98% of domestic workers are foreign
born� (Interestingly, 59% are the primary income earners
of their families.).� In effect, this remains a workforce
of color, however, it is now more varied in actual colors.
Because of its invisibility and because of the link between
the job itself and the history of restricting the scope
of work to which women are permitted to enter, the conditions
of the workers has been too often ignored.� Occasionally
there are news stories about the de facto enslavement
of one or several domestic workers by a particular employer,
but such stories are treated as aberrations rather than
extreme examples of what has been an often lawless work
environment.� Sexual harassment, mandatory overtime, the
assumption of expenses by the workers themselves and many
other exploitative behaviors have been part of the everyday
experience of thousands of such workers.
This struggle is noteworthy on many levels, not the least
of which being the building of a new relationship with organized
labor.� After the passage of the National Labor Relations
Act, �excluded workers,� including but not limited to domestic
workers, were largely abandoned by the formal union movement.�
While there has been a history of efforts to organize such
workers into unions or union-like structures, with the exception
of struggles such as the one led by the California-based
United Farm Workers union, these have largely been off of
the radar screen of most of the union movement.� In some
cases, such snubbing was the result of racism and sexism,
while in other cases it was simply a sort of legalese narrowness,
i.e., the law excludes these workers so they are out of
luck.
The campaign in New York started to turn some of this around.�
Domestic Workers United, along with its national umbrella,
are part of a newly emerging movement of organizations and
centers that have emerged outside of the framework of organized
labor but are seeking a new and respectful partnership with
the unions.�� DWU and its allies in New York sought out
labor union support.�� The New York City Central Labor Council
embraced their efforts, but so too did both the Service
Employees International Union Local 32B/32J (the mega building
service local stretching from Massachusetts to Washington,
DC) and the New York City-based Transport Workers Union,
Local 100.� The national AFL-CIO, representing more than
ten million workers, also joined forces.� Then AFL-CIO President
John Sweeney offered his personal stamp of support for the
efforts aimed at securing a domestic workers bill of rights.
The efforts by DWU and its allies in many respects paralleled
those of their sister and brother excluded workers
from the United Farm Workers who, decades ago, turned a
struggle for workers� rights into a social battle for the
expansion of democracy and racial justice.� Reading comments
by New York political leaders in endorsing the proposed
Domestic Workers Bill of Rights it is clear that they recognized
that this struggle has been articulated as a moral battle
rather than one that is only about statutes.� This is, in
other words, one of those special �which side are you on?�
moments.� Such a moment can only happen when there is a
combination of the articulation of a demand in a manner
that extends beyond the bounds of sectorial interests along
with the creation of a popular coalition that embraces the
demand as one of basic justice and human rights.�
Concerns have been raised in some arenas that this victory
has not gone far enough and there is certainly some truth
to that.� There are decades of repair work that need to
be done to make amends for the mistreatment and marginalization
experienced by this workforce.� At a minimum a system of
collective bargaining needs to be put into place whereby
the state or cities take responsibility for ensuring that
resources are made available to raise the living standard
of these workers.� To expect total or near total victory
at this stage, however, would be entirely unrealistic.�
Much like newly organized workers in the 1930s, the first
victories institutionalized their existence and granted
them the raw elements of economic justice.� It took years
of organization-building and struggle to advance based upon
those early victories.
The signing into law of the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights
is a victory that should be celebrated by all those engaged
in the struggles for economic and social justice, irrespective
of whether they are in labor unions, worker centers, independent
worker organizations, or, for that matter, whether they
are supporters of workers standing on the outside of the
movement.� This is truly the first light of a new day.
BlackCommentator.com
Editorial
Board member, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior Scholar with
the Institute
for Policy Studies,
the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum and
co-author of, Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path
toward Social Justice(University
of California Press), which examines the crisis of organized
labor in the USA. Click here
to contact Mr. Fletcher.
|
Jul 22, 2010 - Issue 385
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