How US Domestic Workers Won Their Rights

[Editor’s note: After a week when the Conservative Party's national convention placed Canada's labour movement squarely in its crosshairs, and Unifor union flexed its muscles by organizing rallies in six cities across the country in support of 150 laid-off office workers, this article from the U.S. publication YES! offers some lessons for labour success being learned south of our border.]

Domestic workers in the United States had some breakthrough wins this fall. These workers had been excluded from protections such as a guaranteed minimum wage, paid breaks and overtime pay. But on Sept. 17, the Obama administration announced new rules extending the Fair Labour Standards Act to include the 800,000 to two-million home-health workers -- those who help seniors and others with self-care tasks like taking medications, bathing and shopping -- under the federal government's wage and hour protections.

Next, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights on Sept. 26, allowing the full spectrum of domestic workers -- including live-in nannies and housekeepers -- to benefit from the same gains as the home-health workers.

For the first time ever, these employees will be guaranteed the federal minimum wage and will earn overtime pay. And their victories have implications for a much larger portion of the workforce, including independent contractors, non-traditional employees and those on temporary assignments. The domestic employees' wins help chart a path forward for the growing number of employees who work outside conventional office settings.

Much of the credit for these historic wins is due to the tenacious organizing of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, a group of workers in the field who advocate for their own rights. Led since 2010 by the dynamic young organizer Ai-Jen Poo, the NDWA has grown from a single chapter in New York City to a nationwide organization with campaigns for domestic workers' rights in 19 cities and 11 states.

Here are five lessons the wider progressive community can draw from the victories.

1. Local struggles can have national impact.

Before the creation of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the New York-based organization Domestic Workers United organized locally. After winning passage of the Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights in New York state, the group took their campaign on the road. The alliance won a second state-level victory in Hawaii and then began organizing nationally with the message that those who care for elders and people with disabilities deserve respect. (It helped that this message was already reverberating across the globe after the International Labour Organization ratified its Convention on Domestic Workers in 2011.)

Having campaigns at the local, state and national levels gave the NDWA the flexibility to focus where victory was most likely. Massachusetts is poised to be their next state-level target, Poo told Laura Flanders, Nation columnist and YES! Magazine Local Economies reporting fellow.

2. Crunch your own numbers.

Rather than defensively responding to reports by business groups and state agencies, the NDWA created its own, from-the-ground-up reports and analysis on the working conditions faced by domestic employees in the United States.

Developing the capacity to contribute to the research around domestic work allowed the alliance to set the terms of debate. Other groups can use the same technique to frame the public agenda -- whether around city planning, state budget priorities or federal reforms.

3. Put working people front and centre.

The NDWA used Caring Across Generations to shine the spotlight on caregivers -- who are often only seen publicly pushing a client in a wheelchair -- and to show how much they do for their clients.

When Poo appeared in cable news shows and magazine articles, she constantly pointed to the stories of domestic employees and thus kept the spotlight fixed on them. Putting real people's stories forward as the basis for the campaign's argument created public sympathy and understanding.

4. Find allies beyond the usual ones.

Although groups that hire home-care employees could be seen as "the enemy," the NDWA partnered enthusiastically with them. In New York and California, for instance, the alliance worked with Hand in Hand, a national association of caregiver employers willing to take a stand on behalf of their employees' right to fair pay and labour conditions. Hand in Hand's website even offers a toolkit for employers, with guidance on how to become a better employer.

Employers like Hand in Hand join the campaign not out of an impulse towards charity but because they know that fair national standards for home-care employees helps ensure better care for their loved ones. As Poo said recently in a video for the PBS series Makers: "When it comes to human dignity, there is no such thing as an unlikely ally."

Another way that the NDWA cultivated alliances was through the careful coalition-building that went into forming Caring Across Generations, a campaign that seeks to ensure seniors receive the heath care they need from workers who receive a living wage. Launched in 2011, the coalition's unusually broad range of member groups includes organized labour, seniors, faith-based groups, women's rights organizations and anti-poverty groups.

The different members have come together around a unifying vision for improving the lives of those who serve our youth and our elders. By joining across different organizing traditions and constituencies, they created a far-reaching effort that goes beyond the typical single-issue campaign.

5. Victory begets more victory.

Small victories can be an effective motivator on the road to bigger ones. By stringing together a series of international, national and local victories -- none of them complete in themselves -- the NDWA showed that change is possible and created momentum for ever-greater wins. And the NDWA's campaign for a Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights is still moving forward, with active drives in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Washington, Illinois and Oregon.

The NDWA's record of steadily organizing with their eyes on a clear prize of policy solutions, recognition and respect should serve as an inspiration. The movement's relevance isn't just the fact they are winning; how they fight matters too. Any movement that transforms adversarial employee-employer relations into a unified force for public-policy change is worth learning from.