Premilla Nadasen,
"'Tell Dem Slavery Done': Domestic Workers United and Transnational Feminism"
(page 2 of 3)
Domestic work is a devalued and degraded occupation, in part because
of its racialized and gendered character. For most of U.S. history,
immigrant women and women of color—especially African American
women—formed the bulk of the paid domestic labor
force.[2] In
addition, the association of the occupation with women's unpaid labor in
the home and the location of that work in an ostensibly private space,
have sometimes made it difficult for others to see household labor as
"real work." It is, in the words of Judith Rollins, "invisible"
work.[3]
If the work is not recognized neither are the workers. A domestic
worker is treated simultaneously as invisible and as the personal
property of her employer. In the minds of some employers, the intimate
nature of the work and the racial makeup of the workforce—which
encourages employers to construct their employees as racially
different—justify low wages and poor working conditions. For many
employers, hiring a domestic worker is not limited to hiring their
services or their time—it is conflated with the purchasing of their very
bodies.
The racial politics of domestic work profoundly influenced its
treatment in labor legislation in the first half of the twentieth
century.[4]
When the New Deal was enacted in the 1930s in the midst of
the Great Depression, Southern Congressmen, concerned about maintaining
control over the African American labor force, insisted on the exclusion
of domestic and agricultural workers from minimum wage and collective
bargaining laws. Consequently, domestic workers were denied the basic
labor protections and avenues for protest guaranteed to nearly all
others in the American workforce. Domestic workers, in fact, were not
given Social Security until 1950. They only earned the right to minimum
wages and overtime pay in 1974, in response to a national organizing
effort by African American domestic workers. But, even with the passage
of this law, babysitters and companions for the elderly are still
excluded from minimum wage provisions, and live-in workers are not
granted overtime pay. In addition, even today, domestic workers do not
have the right to organize or bargain collectively. Moreover, domestic
workers are excluded from the Occupational Health and Safety Act and
civil-rights employment laws, which apply only to businesses with
fifteen or more employees.
These legal limitations have resulted in a particularly vulnerable
workforce that is left at the mercy of employers. Employers may be kind,
generous, and understanding, but they can also be cruel and abusive.
Indeed, it is the imbalance of power that makes this occupation so
unpredictable and susceptible to abuse. This susceptibility is
heightened by the fact that many domestic workers are undocumented,
often don't speak English, and have minimal knowledge of the workings of
the American political and legal system. The isolated nature of the
work makes oversight and enforcement of existing laws difficult. Often
shrouded behind a mask of middle-class respectability is the
exploitation that takes place behind closed doors. One case in 2008
involved Varsha Sabhnani, an independent businesswoman in Muttontown,
Long Island, who was convicted of torturing and imprisoning two
Indonesian women and sentenced to eleven years in prison, fined $25,000,
and forced to give up her $2 million home. The middle-aged Indonesian
domestic workers testified that they worked 17 hours a day; were rarely
given enough food to eat; had their passports confiscated; were forced
to take ice cold showers and eat hot chilies as punishment; were cut
with a knife; and were burned with boiling water. Their pay: $100 a
month. Dozens of such cases come to light every year. But even when
torture is not the norm, domestic workers are often treated unfairly.
Equally important are the daily patterns of disrespect that characterize
the occupation. DWU's citywide survey of domestic service found, for
example, that 33 percent of workers surveyed had experienced verbal or
physical abuse or had been made to feel uncomfortable by their
employers; 26 percent earn below the poverty line; 90 percent do not
have health insurance from their employers; and 67 percent only
sometimes or never get overtime pay.
Today the ranks of domestic service in the United States are filled
primarily by poor women from around the
globe.[5] Jamaican, Indonesian,
Salvadoran, Mexican, Filipina, and Trinidadian women are scrubbing the
floors, dusting the bookcases, and burping the babies of New York City's
middle and upper classes. The labor of these transnational migrants has
resulted in new forms of racialization based on class, gender,
nationality, and occupation—what sociologist Rhacel Parreñas calls the
international division of reproductive labor—where poor women of color
are doing the child and elder care for wealthy, mostly white, families
in industrialized countries.[6]
These changes in domestic work as an
occupation have created a vibrant site of resistance, where women of
color have been able to come together to challenge the basic contours of
the occupation. Yet, the historical legacy of domestic service is still
very much present. DWU's slogan, "Tell Dem Slavery Done," is a powerful
reference to the occupation's roots in slavery and also describes the
current conditions under which many domestic workers find themselves.
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