Several years ago, my grandfather had a stroke that left him paralyzed on the left side of his body. My grandmother, while in good health, was over 70 and unable to help him move around, bathe or meet many of his basic needs. So like thousands of other families, they hired a home attendant. The first time I met Ms. Li was a couple of years after she was hired. A second stroke had put my grandfather back in the hospital in critical condition. I remember entering the hospital room to visit him. Ms. Li sat at the side of his bed with a small plastic comb in her hand, slowly combing back his thin grey hair. His eyes were closed, and his expression peaceful and light. I turned to greet my grandmother, who said quietly, "He asks for her to comb his hair. It puts him at ease." Apparently, every morning at home for the last two years, she patiently combed his hair after bathing him. At that moment, it was clear to me that there are few greater gifts than being cared for by another person. It is rooted in the interconnectedness of humanity; we rely on one another, particularly when we face the uncertainty of life.

We live in an economic system that requires us to disconnect from each other despite the fact that we are ultimately interconnected. In fact, many forms of necessary labor are erased and devalued in our current system, particularly work that has historically been associated with women and women of color. The domestic work industry provides a clear window into this reality. Domestic worker organizing not only seeks to address the systemic problems facing the workforce, but also points to ways we can reshape the economy, toward a more sustainable system that adequately supports our basic human needs.

A World of Work in the Home

The estimated 2.5 million women who labor as domestic workers in the United States make it possible for their employers to go to work every day by caring for the most precious elements of their employers' lives: their families and homes. Essentially, domestic workers produce the labor power of the families they work for. Those families go to work knowing that they can return to a clean home, to clean clothes to wear, and to elderly parents and children who will have their basic needs met. In fact, domestic workers have to play the role of nurses, art teachers, counselors, tutors, assistants, and nutritionists. Yet, because this work has historically been associated with the unpaid work of women in the home or with the poorly paid work of Black and immigrant women, it remains undervalued and virtually invisible to public consciousness.

In New York, over 200,000 women of color leave their homes several hours before everyone else, often in the dark, in order to arrive at their employers' homes before they leave for work. Many arrive early to prepare children for school and walk them to their buses. Some even live in their employers' homes, prepare breakfast and pack lunches for the entire household. 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. However, if domestic workers across the city went on strike, almost every industry would be impacted. Doctors, lawyers, bankers, professors, small business owners, civil sector employees and media executives would all be affected. The urban economy would be paralyzed.

Most domestic workers are immigrant women of color from the global South who bear enormous pressure to support families both in the U.S. and abroad. In a recent survey conducted by DataCenter and Domestic Workers United, researchers found that 98% of domestic workers are foreign born and that 59% are the primary income earners for their families. Domestic work remains one of the few professions available to immigrant women in major cities. For this reason, it tends to draw in migrants from poor countries in search of work in our cities' growing informal service sectors. Many urban immigrant communities rely on the income of domestic workers for their economic survival.

The pressure to support their families economically is compounded by domestic workers' responsibilities to provide care for their own families and homes. The more hours they work, the fewer hours they have to spend with their own children: making nutritious meals, helping them with homework, or reading them a bedtime story. If you are working as a domestic worker in the United States, your own family will often be left without the care they need and deserve.

Long hours are just the beginning. While some employers treat their employees with dignity and respect, others use their power to compel their employees to work as many hours as possible for as little as possible. The power imbalance between domestic workers and employers is severe. The employers are commonly of a privileged class, race, and immigration status with respect to the women they hire to care for their homes and families. Most workplaces have one lone worker. The workplace is their employers' private homes—often seen as a "man's castle"—a place where the government has no business or authority. Advocates often compare the industry to the "Wild West" because it seems to function above the law. Employers can utilize sexual and gender-based harassment to instill fear, as well as exploit workers' immigration status to establish control in the workplace. Considering the prevalence of domestic violence, despite generations of organizing and advocacy on the part of the women's movement, one can imagine what is possible behind closed doors.

"Maria" worked as a caregiver for a child with a disability. A Central American woman in her mid-sixties, she came to the United States to support her family, including her diabetic son whose insulin she could not afford. In addition to constant care for a child with a disability, she was responsible for doing the cooking, cleaning, and ironing for the entire household. Maria worked 18 hours per day, six days per week for under $3 per hour. She lived in the basement of her employer's home where a broken sewage system flooded the floor by her bed. She had to collect cardboard and wood from the street during the day so she could use them as stepping stones to her bed at night. After three years working under these terrible conditions, Maria was fired without notice or severance pay. Working as a domestic worker in the United States often means working in unhealthy conditions, facing constant fear of firing, of deportation, of harassment and of abuse.

Domestic work is one our nation's oldest professions, so one should be able to assume that labor laws and other measures would protect the basic rights of the workforce. Instead, domestic workers have been explicitly excluded from labor laws since the New Deal. The exclusion of domestic workers—most of whom were African American women in the South at the time those labor laws were passed—is rooted in the legacy of slavery. It reminds us that Jim Crow is alive and well in the labor laws. In many states, domestic workers are excluded from the definition of "employee." Eight decades after the passage of this nation's foundational labor protections, domestic workers are still struggling to assert basic worker rights like time off and overtime pay.

Organizing for Dignified Work

Since 2000, Domestic Workers United (DWU) has organized Caribbean, Latina and African nannies, housekeepers, and elderly caregivers in New York. They are fighting for power, respect and fair labor standards, and their work helps to build a broader movement for social change. DWU helped organize public pressure for justice for workers like Maria who have been mistreated by their employers. DWU organized demonstrations at Maria's employer's businesses and worked with the CUNY Immigrant and Refugee Rights Clinic to file a successful lawsuit against her employer for unpaid wages. Using this combination of legal pressure and direct action, DWU has helped to recover over $450,000 in stolen wages for workers like Maria.

For the past 5 years, DWU has been waging a campaign to pass the "Domestic Workers Bill of Rights," statewide legislation that would establish basic labor standards for more than 200,000 domestic workers in New York State. These standards would include: notice of termination, a minimum of one day off per week, paid holidays, vacation and sick days and protection from discrimination. The coalition of domestic workers organizations led by DWU has gained tremendous support from labor unions, progressive employers, clergy, academics, student, community and women's organizations. The effort has raised the profile of the workforce considerably. However, the challenges to legislative change are great.

Some legislators have argued, in order to achieve days off and benefits domestic workers must form a union and collectively bargain "like other workers have to do." A few legislators have claimed that they cannot enact a law with these types of provisions because it would provide "special protections" for domestic workers that other workers do not receive by law. However, DWU has argued that the decentralized nature of this industry "wires" it for abuse, and makes it impossible to engage in collective bargaining. There is no collective workforce because workers are isolated as individuals in scattered, unmarked separate homes; and there isn't a central employer with whom to bargain. When one worker bargains with her employer, termination is the standard result. Employers simply seek to hire someone else. In the context of such intensified inequality and the nature of the industry itself, the National Labor Relations Act (the New Deal policy that provides the current framework for collective bargaining in the U.S.) would fail domestic workers, even if they were not excluded. These dynamics make every domestic worker vulnerable to conditions of indentured servitude.

But the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights is not just a campaign to address the impracticality of collective bargaining for the domestic work labor force. The Bill of Rights exposes our moral responsibility to value their work because it makes all other work possible, and it calls for an expansion of the practical role of the government in establishing and enforcing labor standards for all workers. Domestic workers have always been treated as a "special class" of workers; they have been "specially" excluded and undervalued as workers. What does it say about this nation that this workforce—that provides such a crucial type of care—is the least valued and most invisible?

In fact, the work that has historically been associated with women has made it possible for us to be where we are today. Challenging the government to account for this work and to provide appropriate protections points to the necessity for a feminist lens. It is only with this lens that we adequately account for the full reality of our economic system. Everyone needs the care of others at one point or another in their lives. We rely on others to care for us when we are children, in times of need and when we age. Even while institutional sexism devalues this work and tries to render these workers invisible, we all have a relationship to this kind of care-giving labor.

Our common experiences—in giving and receiving care—gives us an opportunity to take action in our common interest towards institutional change. As we emerge from one of the greatest economic crises of our time, we will need models that help us redefine the role of government, and its relationship to the economy. The Bill of Rights points to a new relationship between government and this industry—a relationship that is more proactive and reflective of the economic realities and needs we all face.

Lessons for a New Economy

Organizing with a feminist approach, DWU organizers have utilized everyone's connection to and reliance upon "women's work" as the basis for organizing. They have made the stories of domestic workers central. They tell the story of the work they do and the pride they feel for the work. They also tell the stories of the profound vulnerability and abuses they face. DWU has brought children who were raised by domestic workers and employers who rely on domestic workers together with domestic workers and their own children. The power of their collective stories—as workers and as people who have been the beneficiaries of their caring labor—demonstrate the power and significance of domestic work. The campaign has created the space for everyone to take action from this place of interdependence. They model a world where, in the words of DWU, "all work is valued equally."

Domestic Workers United is a part of a growing national movement of domestic worker resistance. They helped to organize the first national meeting of domestic workers organizations in 2007. After an historic exchange about organizing strategies, domestic worker organizations from around the country decided to form the National Domestic Workers Alliance as a vehicle for domestic workers to build power and raise their voice as a national force for change. Two years later, the Alliance has doubled in size. The Alliance has established a National Training Institute for domestic workers. It is leading campaigns at the state, national and international levels to enforce existing labor laws and to establish new labor standards for domestic workers. In 2010, California domestic worker organizations will be launching their campaign for the California Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. State by state, workers are asserting their rights as workers, and they are challenging the government to take responsibility for mediating their vulnerability to exploitation.

Understanding the power of Ms. Li and Maria's work can help us to structurally recalibrate to what is important in life. Some people will pay more for a pair of shoes than they pay their domestic workers for a week of work. The historic exclusions of domestic workers reinforce this system of values. Similarly, the legislature has waited five years to pass basic legislation to improve the lives of over 200,000 women. There is no organized opposition to the bill, nor is there a significant cost to the State of New York, but the bill has not yet become a legislative priority. The legislature has not yet understood that what seems like a measure that's specific to domestic workers, actually touches all of us. A recalibration is needed, and it must be institutionalized in the form of policy.

The upside-down concentration of the world's resources and wealth in the hands of a small minority at the expense of the vast majority is in fact unsustainable for everyone. Domestic worker policy demands that we recognize and value the basic care that we all require to live and provides a model for reshaping our economy to serve our collective human needs. We will need this kind of balance and systemic equity if we are going to sustain ourselves through the changes and uncertainty to come.