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.
