University of Massachusetts Boston
ScholarWorks at UMass Boston
Labor Studies Faculty Publication Series
Labor Studies
10-2014
INVISIBLE NO MORE: Domestic workers
organizing in Massachusetts and beyond
Natalicia Tracy
Brazilian Immigrant Center
Tim Sieber
University of Massachusetts Boston, tim.sieber@umb.edu
Susan Moir ScD
University of Massachusetts Boston, susan.moir@umb.edu
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beyond" (2014). Labor Studies Faculty Publication Series. Paper 1.
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INVISIBLE NO MORE:
Domestic workers organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
By Natalicia Tracy, Tim Sieber, and Susan Moir
A research report from the Brazilian Immigrant Center
and the Labor Resource Center at the
University of Massachusetts Boston
October 2014
Acknowledgements
This report was funded by the Sociological Initiatives Foundation, the UMass President’s Office and the UMass
Labor Centers’ Future of Work Research Initiative. The original research, the Brazilian Housecleaner Survey, was
done in partnership the University of Massachusetts Boston and funded by the Sociological Initiatives Foundation.
Thank you to:
Prentice Zinn, Sociological Initiatives Foundation Program Officer.
Professor Glenn Jacobs, UMass Boston Professor of Sociology
The Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy at UMass Boston.
The Brazilian Immigrant Center research team: Lenita Carmo, Andrea Gouveia Roche, Marcela Elerate, and Danielle Villela.
The Domestic Worker Field Surveyors: Lenita Carmo, Angela Sena, Anneliese Macedo, Daniela Serrano, Danielle
Villela, Fátima Chraska, Luci Santos Morris, Marcela de Paula, Orisania Milli, Rosario Swaidan, Tatiana Pinho, and
Denise Daly.
The Project Advisory Committee: UMass Boston Professor Eduardo Siqueira (CPCS and Gastón Institute); Elisa
Tristan, MD, Cambridge Health Alliance; Linda Burnham, National Research Coordinator, NDWA; Luciano Ramos,
Office of Community Partnerships, UMass Boston.
All the Domestic Worker Survey respondents.
About the Authors
Natalicia Tracy is a Sociology Ph.D. Candidate at Boston University, writing a dissertation on Brazilian Immigration
& Mixed-Status Families. She is Lecturer in Sociology and Resident Scholar at the Labor Resource Center at UMass
Boston. She is also Executive Director of Boston’s Brazilian Immigrant Center. A domestic worker for 15 years, she
co-founded the MA Coalition for Domestic Workers, and was a tireless leader in the campaign to achieve the 2014
MA Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. She now leads BIC as the major advocacy organization in the campaign for a
CT Bill of Rights, and is member of the CT General Assembly’s Task Force on Domestic Workers. She serves on the
boards of Women’s Institute for Leadership Development (WILD), Greater Boston Legal Services, Massachusetts
Jobs with Justice (Treasurer), and the National Domestic Workers Alliance (Vice-President). Natalicia can be reached
at natalicia.tracy@umb.edu.
Tim Sieber is Professor and Chair of Anthropology at the UMass Boston. His research projects, publications, consulting, and community work have centered on urban problems and issues, including immigration, domestic workers, the politics of waterfront and urban planning, education, child welfare, gentrification, community and urban
development, public art, and higher education. Most of Tim’s work has been in Boston, but he has also worked in
New York City, as well as in Lisbon, Portugal, and Caracas, Venezuela. In Boston, he has been a board member and
volunteer at the Brazilian Immigrant Center since 2009. Tim can be reached attim.sieber@umb.edu.
Susan Moir, ScD, is the Director of the Labor Resource Center at the University of Massachusetts Boston, a Vice
President of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, and co-convener with the building trades of the six-year old participatory
action research project, the Policy Group on Tradeswomen’s Issues (PGTI). She serves on the Building Pathways
Pre-Apprenticeship Advisory Board and the Massachusetts Division of Apprenticeship Standard’s Committee on
Women’s Access and Opportunity. She was a third generation domestic worker before spending two decades as a
rank-and-file union leader. Susan can be reached atsusan.moir@umb.edu.
PORTRAIT PHOTOS BY MARIO QUIROZ. All photos from the traveling exhibit, “Domestic Workers: The Invisible Wheels
that Empower our Economy,” can be viewed at mario.quiroz.com.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements, Thanks and About the Authors.........................................................Inside cover
Preface: Domestic Worker Organizing Today: Winning Significant Gains for Low-Wage
Workers by Linda Burnham, Research Director, National Domestic Workers Alliance ................... 2
Domestic Workers’ Long Struggle for Respect and Labor Rights ........................................................ 3
The Movement for Domestic Worker Rights: Organizing Nationally and Internationally ............. 5
The Domestic Workers Movement in Massachusetts ............................................................................ 6
The Brazilian Immigrant Center’s 2013 Brazilian Housecleaner Survey ............................................ 7
The Working Life of Brazilian Housecleaners In Massachusetts ........................................................ 10
Worker Centers, Community-Labor Partnerships & Contingent Workers: Current
and Future Organizing Prospects............................................................................................................ 15
Biographical notes on women in domestic worker portrait photos ................................................ 19
Endnotes ...................................................................................................................................................... 19
Resources ..................................................................................................................................................... 21
SIDEBAR BOXES
Invisible history: Domestic Workers Organizing foe Labor Rights ..................................................... 4
Occupational Health Issues Reported by Domestic Workers ............................................................... 7
The Housemaid’s Defiance.......................................................................................................................... 8
Organizing with Love................................................................................................................................. 11
The Domestic Worker Bill of Rights- the nation’s strongest ............................................................... 13
The Contribution of Our Foremothers.................................................................................................... 16
The Global Domestic Workers Movement ............................................................................................. 18
Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
PREFACE
Domestic Worker Organizing Today: Winning
Significant Gains for Low-Wage Workers
Domestic workers across the country are making it
clear that, even in a difficult political environment,
it is possible to make gains for low-wage workers.
For the first time in many, many decades, domestic
workers are finding ways to win. They are creating policy change that will improve the lives of
hundreds of thousands of workers in tangible and
substantial ways. The 2014 Massachusetts Domestic
Workers’ Bill of Rights is the most expansive codification of rights for this long-overlooked part of the
labor force ever to be enacted.
In one sense, there is nothing new about domestic
workers organizing for better wages and working
conditions. From the days of the Atlanta washerwomen’s strike at the end of the 19th century
through the household employee organizing of
the 1960s and 70s, women have joined together to
challenge an industry in which, traditionally, they
have been poorly compensated and routinely overworked.
But today’s domestic worker movement, while
building on the past, is also breaking new ground.
It has generated new political protagonists – the
immigrant nannies, housecleaners and elder caregivers who now make up a substantial segment of
the work force and whose commitment to organizing is the foundation of today’s victories. It has
been strategically innovative, winning campaigns
for domestic worker bills of rights in four states,
with more to come. It has welcomed and built
upon the support of allies from organized labor,
immigrant and workers’ rights groups, leaders from
a range of faith communities, and ethically oriented
employers. And it has networked and organized
with women from around the world to win the very
first international convention for domestic workers’
rights.
Today’s domestic workers’ movement is a sustained
and growing effort that draws upon and fertilizes
the transformative vision and innovative organizing
of communities of color, immigrant communities,
low-wage workers and women of color. Domestic
workers have stepped into their power. Their victories are expanding the realm of the possible, not
only for themselves, but also for all who are committed to worker justice and dignity.
Linda Burnham, Research Director,
National Domestic Workers Alliance
Photo Credit
“One of the problems that we encounter is that we ourselves don’t think highly of what we are doing. Many
of us are embarrassed at doing this work, and end up
doing things that really make us angry later on for
not speaking up. The changes need to start with us. We
need to be proud of what we do. It’s a job. It pays our
bills. It helps us take care of our families, and we need
to demand that it be treated as such.” – Sonia Felix
2
Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
Domestic Workers’ Long Struggle
for Respect and Labor Rights
The exclusion of domestic workers from recognition as real workers has deep, age-old roots in
race, gender and economic discrimination. For
centuries after European settlement of the United
States, only people with less than full citizenship
-- slaves, indentured servants, poor immigrants, and
disenfranchised minorities and women-- did the
work of cleaning others’ houses and raising others’
children. When workers in the United States finally
won the right to organize in the 1930s, domestic
workers were explicitly excluded from labor protections and the historic disrespect for the value of
domestic work became enshrined in law.
With the end of slavery and the rapid spread of
industrialization after the Civil War, domestic work
was the primary paid occupation available to women. By 1870, almost a million women in the United
States– half of the women employed outside the
home-- made a living as domestic workers. By 1900,
domestic workers made up 26.9% all of employed
women, and by 1940, almost three million women
were working as domestic workers, 22% of all women working. The demographics of the workforce
varied widely by region. In 1910 Seattle, 52% of all
household servants were white immigrant women.
In Philadelphia at the same time, African-American
women made up the majority.1 In different ways,
these were workers disadvantaged by their racial,
class, and/or immigration status, as well as by gendered cultural assumptions that “women’s” work
has less value than work that was done by men.
Collective struggles by domestic workers’ to attain
their labor rights and to organize to improve working conditions emerged before the end of the 19th
century and have continued to the present. The
most well known event is the Atlanta Washerwomen’s Strike. In Atlanta, Georgia in 1881, 20 AfricanAmerican laundresses formed a labor organization
they named the Washing Society. At that time, 98%
of black women labored as laundresses and other
household workers. The organizers of the Society
went door-to-door and, within weeks, they had
grown to over 3000 members. Black churches,
mutual aid societies, and fraternal organizations
contributed moral and financial support. Cooks,
child nurses and other domestic workers joined
the Washerwomen in a ten-day strike for a raise to
$1 per dozen pounds of laundry. The leaders were
arrested, landlords threatened rent increases and
city leaders tried to impose an exorbitant business
tax on the Washerwomen. The women held strong
and won a raise. The strike was one of most successful direct action protests carried out by African
Americans in the late 19th century and established
laundresses as instrumental to the New South’s
economy.2
The Atlanta Washerwomen have rightfully become
a symbol of domestic workers organizing against
great odds and of the early struggles of women of
color for economic justice and recognition. Many
other examples of domestic workers self-organizing
campaigns have been largely invisible. (See BOX:
INVISIBLE HISTORY). The successes and setbacks
of organizing domestic workers have closely paralleled the long standing conflicts between the radical and conservative wings of the US labor movement. The earliest labor organizations, the National
Labor Union and the Knights of Labor, espoused
inclusion of all workers and organized women
members. With the ascendency of the American
Federation of Labor in the late nineteenth century,
the conservative philosophy of its founder, Samuel
L. Gompers, took hold of the US union movement. Gompers held that only skilled workers, that
is white males working in industrial workplaces,
could effectively bargain with the employers and
that bargaining should be limited to the “bread and
butter” issues of wages and working conditions.
Labor organizations adhering to these ideas had
no interest in organizing domestic workers. These
views have been sporadically challenged, most notably by the Industrial Workers of the World—the
Wobblies—of the early twentieth century and the
Congress of Industrial Organizations of the 1930s
depression era. Both the IWW and the CIO supported domestic worker organizing campaigns and
chartered women’s locals. [See BOX: The Housemaids’ Defiance] However, “Gomperism” prevailed
and dominated the workers’ movement in the US
for over a century.
3
Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
INVISIBLE HISTORY: Domestic workers
organizing for labor rights
Donna L. Van Raaphort documented the history
of domestic workers organizing in the US and the
popular culture’s disparagement and ridicule of
domestic workers in her 1988 book Union Maids
Not Wanted.
Some of the most notable organizing campaigns
included:
•
•
•
•
The Working Women’s Protective Union
was formed in New York City in 1864 to
assist domestic workers in nonpayment
of wages. The Union successfully lobbied
for one of the nation’s first law’s against
employer wage theft.
In 1866, washerwomen in Brooklyn went
on strike for a raise from $1 a day to $1.25.
In 1889, Black women domestics in Bibb
City, Arkansas went on strike against their
employers’ ill treatment of them.
Throughout the 1880’s and ‘90’s, popular
magazines reported on regional organizations of domestic workers including the
Domestic Servants Union in New York
City, the Servant Girl’s Union in Toledo,
the Household Union in Holyoke, Massachusetts
In 1897, Mary Hartropp, a young domestic
in Kansas City, Missouri, organized the
American Servant Girls Association. The
Association had 5000 members in thirty
locals.
In the 1930s, domestic workers’ exclusion from
labor organizing and recognition as “real workers” became institutionalized and enshrined in
law. As the Roosevelt administration crafted its
New Deal legislation to protect—for the first time
in the country’s history—the rights of workers in
the United States to organize and bargain for their
rights at work, labor-friendly politicians from the
north and Southern Democrats made a “Devil’s
Bargain” to maintain Jim Crow labor market segregation. In exchange for Southern support in Congress, the new labor laws, including the National
Labor Relations Act, the Social Security Act, and the
Fair Labor Standards Act, would exclude domestic
workers and agricultural workers. The effect was
4
At the 1901 founding of the Workingwomen of America, members rejected the
term “servant girl” and sought to elevate
the status of paid domestic workers. The
group disbanded after being taken over
by reformist employers.
• Just before World War I, Jane Street of the
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
organized 6000 domestic workers into
the Denver Housemaids IWW Local 113.
Street’s work inspired locals that were
organized in Tulsa, Dulth, Seattle, Salt
Lake City, Cleveland and Chicago. Street
signed her correspondence, “Yours for a
speedy abolition of domestic slavery.” The
locals disbanded when the federal government used the Espionage Act to destroy
the IWW.
Newspapers and magazines of the nineteenth
century also document many occasions of domestic workers organizing mutual aid clubs to protect
against employer abuse and support each other
during period of unemployment.
•
Sources: Van Raaphorst, D.L., Union Maids Not
Wanted: Organizing Domestic Workers 18701940, New York: Praeger, 1988; “Report on
condition of women and child wage-earners,”
Senate Documents, Vol. 94, 1909-10; Foner, P.,
Women and the American Labor Movement,
New York: Free Press, 1979; Hayden, D., The
Grand Domestic Revolution, Cambridge, MIT
Press, 1981; “Letter from Jane Street to Mrs.
Elmer S Bruse,” http://www.iww.org/history/
library/Street/letter.
to protect the rights of white workers for wage and
hour protections, collective bargaining, unemployment insurance and a secure retirement while
excluding the majority of black workers (and many
Mexicans in the West) from those legal rights.3 This
pattern of using the occupational proxy of domestic and agricultural work for racist intent continued
in the coming decades when the same exclusions
were applied in the Occupational Safety and Health
Act in 1970 and the Family Medical Leave Act in
1993.
In spite of the historic legal and labor barriers facing them, domestic workers are on the move again
and building organizations and alliances for a future
Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
with the rights and protections accorded all workers.4
The Movement for Domestic
Worker Rights: Organizing
Nationally and Internationally
As the US opened up its borders to wider international migration through the late twentieth century
and employment options for African American
women broadened, the domestic worker labor
force became primarily immigrant women. Economic inequality increased during the same period
and the growing professional and business classes
in urban areas created a strong market demand for
domestic workers. In response to these changes, a
variety of domestic worker associations and worker
centers emerged to defend and advance workers’
rights.
Domestic Workers United (DWU) was formed in
New York City in 2000 by members of the Women
Workers Project of the Coalition Against Asian
American Violence (CAAAV), an organization of
Filipina domestic workers, and Andolan Organizing
South Asian Workers, an organization founded by
South Asian immigrant workers. DWU extended its
outreach to Caribbean, Latina and African workers. In 2010, with a membership of 4000 domestic
workers and a broad coalition that included employers, unions, clergy and community organizations, DWU led a successful campaign for passage
of the New York state Domestic Workers Bill of
Rights, the nation’s first comprehensive legislation
extending basic rights and protections to domestic
workers.5
Three years earlier, the movement went national
at the first US Social Forum held in Atlanta in 2007.
Thirteen domestic worker organizations from
around the country met daily at the Forum and
left having formed the National Domestic Workers
Alliance (NDWA). Today the NDWA encompasses 44
affiliate organizations in 26 cities and 18 states that
represent over 10,000 nannies, housekeepers, and
caregivers for the elderly. The NDWA provides capacity and support to member organizations across
the country in their efforts to develop domestic
worker leadership and build broad coalitions for
domestic workers rights.
NDWA’s initial efforts have focused on supporting
campaigns for state-level legislation for Domestic
Workers Bills of Rights. New York’s success has
been joined by Hawaii and California in 2013, and
Massachusetts in 2014. [See BOX: Organizing with
Love] Campaigns are also underway in Connecticut, Illinois, and Georgia and early stage organizing
has begun in several other states. In each state,
broad coalitions in support of the Domestic Worker
Bill of Rights have included the AFL-CIO and labor
unions such as the Service Employees International
Union (SEIU) and the United Auto Workers (UAW),
faith communities, employers’ organizations, workers centers, women’s organizations, and immigrant
advocacy groups. These coalitions have been essential in winning political support for change.6
The power of the NDWA has been increased especially through its partnership agreement with the
national AFL-CIO. In 2011, in a historic turn away
from the Gompers legacy of exclusion, AFL-CIO
signed a landmark agreement with NDWA to collaborate on issues of organizing, winning rights for
excluded workers and building long-term relationships. A national partnership with SEIU was signed
in 2012.7
Internationally, domestic workers formed the
International Domestic Workers Network (IDWN)
5
Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
•
•
•
Conducting strategic development planning
among its affiliates
Holding capacity-building and gender training
activities with its affiliates, e.g. in Nepal, Cambodia, Kenya, Tanzania and Guinea
Coordinating international action day activities
The Domestic Worker Movement
in Massachusetts
Photo Daniele Villela
Domestic workers telling their stories, finding community, and building solidarity for activism. On October
26, 2013, 32 Brazilian and Latina domestic workers
gathered at the Brazilian Immigrant Center for a
tri-lingual workshop on storytelling, focusing on their
work experiences. As Ai-jen Poo has argued, “narrative
power” is one of the types of power that domestic workers have to use in their struggle for dignity and rights.
The workshop was done in partnership with the Dominican Development Center and Trainer and Storyteller
Norah Dooley of Boston.
in 2006. The first goal of the IDWN was to fight for
an international convention that would establish
that domestic workers are indeed workers by law.
The IDWN succeeded when the International Labor
Organization (ILO) in Geneva adopted C189, the
“Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers” in 2011. Lobbying for the Convention was the
first partnership activity of the AFL-CIO and the
NWDA. (see BOX: The Global Domestic Workers
Movement). In 2013, 180 domestic worker representatives from 56 organizations and 40 countries
met in Uruguay to create the plan to convert the
international organization from a loose network to
a federation. The International Domestic Workers
Federation IDWF) is now a membership organization with 47 affiliates in 43 countries.8 Members
include domestic worker unions, associations and
worker centers. Among the IDWF’s key activities
are:
•
•
•
6
Organizing of migrant domestic workers in
India, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand, Zimbabwe, Argentina and Ethiopia
Enactment of domestic workers policies/legislations in countries, particularly India, Indonesia,
Cambodia, Brazil and Chile
Campaigning against excessive recruitment fees
on Indonesian migrant domestic workers
Massachusetts’ own efforts began in the summer
of 2010. Following the passage of the Domestic
Workers Bill of Rights in New York, the staff of the
Brazilian Immigrant Center (BIC) went to New York
to meet with Domestic Workers United staff and
seek their guidance on how to organize for a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights victory in Massachusetts. Later that year, the Massachusetts Coalition
for Domestic Workers was formed by the Brazilian
Immigrant Center, the Dominican Development
Center, the Brazilian Women’s Group/Vida Verde
Cooperative, Matahari Eye of the Day, and the
Women’s Institute for Leadership Development.
Greater Boston Legal Services would later join the
coalition as legal counsel in October 2012. Between
2010 and 2014, the Brazilian Immigrant Center
reached out to domestic workers, while supporting the movement through its Domestic Worker
Law & Policy Clinic, and an innovative Domestic
Worker Mediation Program, that trained 32 workers
and employers as mediators to help resolve workplace disputes. BIC also created the first-ever legal
manual on domestic worker law for workers and
employers. Since 2012 and in collaboration with
photographer Mario Quiroz, BIC has sponsored a
photographic exhibit of portraits of domestic workers that has traveled to public libraries in 12 cities
throughout Massachusetts.
“I borrowed a lot of money to come here,
and I took a job where I had to work a
lot, and use a lot of strong products, but
I never complained because I couldn’t afford to lose that job. I would do anything
they asked me to do.”
Within the Coalition, the years 2010-2014 were
spent organizing in a variety of ethnic communi-
Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
ties represented by the state’s domestic workers,
building a grassroots movement advocating a
Massachusetts Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.
A statewide Domestic Worker Congress was held
in Boston in June 2012. The Congress outlined
all the issues that needed to be addressed as the
Domestic Workers Bill of Rights for Massachusetts
was being drafted. The Bill was officially submitted in January 2013 with over 40% of the House
and Senate legislators signed on as co-sponsors.
An overflow crowd of domestic workers, advocates and labor supporters attended a positive
public hearing on the bill in November 2013. The
final law was passed and signed in June 2014. In a
testimony to the Coalition’s organizing, no other
pro-labor legislation has passed the Massachusetts
legislature in a single session in recent memory.
Labor and community support were essential
in the success of the legislative and public campaigns. The Bill had the support of more than
80 endorsing organizations including the state
AFL-CIO, all its constituent Labor Councils, four
statewide SEIU Locals (1199, 32BJ, 615, and 888),
as well as many faith communities, immigrant
organizations, legal groups, and workers centers. The Massachusetts Domestic Workers Bill of
Rights is the strongest won the US so far and will
be fully implemented in 2015. [See BOX: The Massachusetts Domestic Workers Bill of Rights—the
nation’s strongest].
The Brazilian Immigrant Center’s
2013 Brazilian
Housecleaner Survey
The domestic workers movement has produced
valuable research in its efforts to collect better data
on domestic workers and improve public messaging of its goals.9 With a commitment to research
and policy analysis on the Brazilian community in
Massachusetts and in anticipation of implementation of the Bill of Rights, the Brazilian Immigrant
Center undertook a 2013 community participatory
research study by domestic workers about their
working conditions. The research was done in
collaboration with the University of Massachusetts
Boston and with the support of the Sociological
Initiatives Foundation.10
Occupational Health Issues Reported by
Domestic Workers
A 2005-6 survey of 163 Brazilian housecleaners in Massachusetts found that those surveyed
resided in 32 cities and towns across the state.
Ninety-six percent were female. They worked an
average of 40.5 hours per week and cleaned an
average of 15 houses per week. Many were exposed to a variety of ergonomic, chemical, and
biological hazards while cleaning home and/or
office environments. According to housecleaners’ reports, their work is fast paced, requires
awkward postures, involves repetitive movements, use of force, and heavy lifting. They also
handle cleaning products that can affect their
skin and respiratory system, and they come
into contact with surfaces contaminated with
viruses, bacteria, and fungi. The most common
symptoms reported were back pain, and pain
in muscles, legs, neck, shoulder, hands, fingers,
and feet. As domestic workers organize for a
greater voice in their working conditions, they
will see progress on the study’s recommendations for greener cleaning agents, greater access
to personal protective equipment and changes
in work organization
C. Eduardo Siqueira & Andrea Gouveia Roche, “Occupational Health Profile Of Brazilian Immigrant
Housecleaners In Massachusetts” New Solutions: A
Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health
Policy, Vol. 23(3) 505-520, 2013
Research questions address housecleaners’
concerns
The Brazilian Housecleaner Survey was a workerled survey of working conditions among Brazilian
housecleaners, a large segment of domestic workers in the Greater Boston immigrant community.
This survey took its place as a small-scale contribution to a long-standing genre of participatory action
field investigations by domestic workers of working
conditions in their own industry. Past domestic
worker led surveys helped to build the movement,
and to collect valuable data for use in drafting legislation and in public messaging.
7
Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
“The Housemaids’ Defiance”
Lyrics by the Denver Housemaids’ Union
(IWW)
Music by Jack Judge and
Harry Williams (ca. 1916)
We are coming all together;
We are organized to stay.
For nigh on fifty years or more,
We’ve worked for little pay.
But now we’ve got our union,
We’ll do it never more.
Chorus
It’s a long day for housemaid Mary;
It’s a long day’s hard toil.
It’s a burden too hard to carry,
So our mistress’s schemes we’ll foil.
We’ll be silent no longer.
We won’t be kept down.
And we’re out for a shorter day this summer,
Or we’ll fix Denver town.
We’ve answered all your doorbells,
And we’ve washed your dirty kid.
For lo these many, weary years,
We’ve done as we were bid.
But we’re goin’ to fight for freedom,
And for our rights, we’ll stand.
And we’re goin’ to stick together
In One Big Union band.
We’ve washed your dirty linen,
And we’ve cooked your daily foods.
We’ve eaten in your kitchens,
And we’ve stood your ugly moods.
But now we’ve joined the union,
And we’re organized to stay.
You’ve paid the going wages.
That’s what kept us on the run.
You say you’ve done your duty,
You cranky son-of-a-gun.
We’ve stood for all your crazy bunk,
And still you rave and shout
And call us inefficient
And a lazy gad-about.
Chorus
http://politicalfolkmusic.org/wordpress/denverhousemaids-union-the-housemaids-defiance/
8
Why housecleaners? Women are half of the 140,000
Brazilian immigrants currently in Massachusetts.
Almost 30% work at some point as domestic servants. Most are housecleaners, the major female
occupation among Brazilians, the largest and fastest
growing of the state’s foreign-born groups.11 Up
to 70% of Brazilians are also undocumented and
insecure immigration status traps many in domestic
service, a mostly unregulated industry within the
informal economy where worker exploitation is
common.12 For today’s more working-class immigrant stream, most of whom have entered the
country “uninspected” (that is, through unauthorized border crossing), this is even more true than
for the middle class migrants studied in the first
major wave of Brazilian immigration to the US in
1980s New York.13
Despite the prominence of this work for Brazilian
women, very little research has been done on the
work life of Brazilian housecleaners in Massachusetts.14 Many Brazilian housecleaners are now
playing a leadership role in the grassroots movement for domestic worker rights in Massachusetts,
as well as nationally, and their work-a-day realities
as housecleaners are still often overlooked when
compared to other domestic workers, such as nannies and caregivers.
The Survey sought to describe the working and
living conditions of Brazilian housecleaners in the
major Brazilian communities of Massachusetts and
the housecleaners’ perceptions of the most problematic of their working conditions much as two
earlier studies had done.14 The Survey also looked
at whether workers with undocumented immigrant
status are more likely to be darker in skin color,
and of lower social class, than others, and secondly,
that these workers are more likely to be the workers who are the most aggrieved over social and
economic disrespect and exploitation in the workplace. Among Brazilian immigrants, many studies
already recognize the close association between
lower social class, African or mixed-race descent,
and undocumented status.15 The 2012 NDWA
national survey of domestic workers, which covered 14 states and including Massachusetts data,
Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
concluded that “undocumented workers face lower
wages and worse working conditions,” noting a
17% “wage penalty” in terms of average compensation, and that, “race/ethnicity and immigration
status appear to intersect…creating significant
disadvantages for undocumented Latinas” [which
include Brazilians].16
Finally, the survey assessed a variety of health-related complaints that appear to result from repetitive
stress injuries and exposures to toxic chemicals in
cleaning products common to housecleaners and
whether there is an association between health
problems and the length of time housecleaners
have worked in the industry.
Initial survey questions were drawn from the 2012
National Domestic Workers Alliance national survey,
the 2005 domestic worker survey instrument used
by the Collaboration for Better Work Environments
for Brazilians (COBWEB) project.17 The completed
survey focused on issues not examined in earlier
studies of Massachusetts’s domestic workers. Many
of the key questions arose from the historic first
Congress of Massachusetts Domestic Workers held
in Boston in 2012. In breakout sessions for the purpose of identifying key issues to be addressed in a
proposed Domestic Worker’s Bill of Rights, the 110
participants recorded their main complaints about
their work life. The strongest worker complaints
were directed at unwarranted interpersonal disrespect and devaluing of their work they experienced
from employers, often accompanied by mistreatment, exploitation, and denial of labor rights – even
existing rights they are already entitled to – as well
as their basic human rights. Domestic workers
believe deeply in the importance of their work, and
feel pride in offering quality service as professionals in caring for their employers’ homes, families,
children, and elderly.
Survey methods: a community-led social
survey
Participants who played different roles in the
Housecleaners Survey had shared definitions of the
surveyed population.
•
A domestic worker is a person who works
within their employer’s household. Domestic
workers perform a variety of household services for an individual or a family, from providing care for children and elderly dependents to
cleaning and household maintenance, known
as housekeeping.
•
Housecleaners typically are live-out domestic
workers who periodically visit their clients’
homes, usually weekly or bi-weekly, to clean
interior domestic space. This commonly encompasses vacuuming and dusting of all living
areas, scrubbing and polishing of kitchen and
bathroom appliances, surfaces, and floors, and
sometimes areas occupied by family pets. Since
work boundaries are not well defined, and
highly variable depending on employer, however, housecleaners also are often asked to do
other chores that might include laundry, washing dirty dishes, changing bed linens, childcare,
or running errands. Brazilian housecleaners
often work in groups, whose “owner” coordinates their schedules, supervises their work, is
in charge of financial relations with clients, and
transports workers from site to site (up to 5 to
10 houses per day).
Ten current or former housecleaners were trained
in survey research methods at an all-day session at
UMass Boston in March 2103. Some of the surveyors had worked previously as field researchers on
the 2012 NDWA national survey. The survey instrument was piloted at domestic worker meetings at
the Brazilian Immigrant Center. In all, the 59-item
survey contained 3 screening questions, 11 demographic questions, and another 45 questions on
working conditions. The survey took 30-45 minutes
to administer. Between May and September 2013,
the field surveyors conducted face-to-face interviews with other domestic workers across the state
in 54 Massachusetts cities and towns clustered in
the three regions with the highest Brazilian populations: Greater Boston, including North and South
Shore; Metro West; and Cape Cod. Surveys were
conducted in Portuguese. One hundred and ninetyeight surveys were collected using a combination
of convenience and snowball sampling methods.
Respondents needed to be 18 years of age or older,
have worked as a housecleaner in the previous
month, and live in Massachusetts.
9
Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
Photo by Andrea Gouveia Roche
Brazilian women currently or formerly working as
housecleaners at training session in survey research
methods, with Project Director and trainer Natalicia Tracy (at center of photo in black jacket), at the
Sociology Department of the University of Massachusetts Boston, March 2013. The training, the research
instrument, and face-to-face interviews were all done
in Portuguese.
The 198 respondents were all women. Although
husbands occasionally accompany their wives as
partners when doing the work, there were no such
instances among the respondents.
The other demographics of the respondents displayed a profile similar to other workers in their
ethnic community, and to what has been found
more widely for other Latin American immigrants:
•
•
•
•
10
They are a young adult group in their prime
working and childbearing years. Over half
(56%) were under 40 years of age. More than a
quarter were in their 40s, and only 15% fifty or
older.
Two thirds of the sample (66%) reported being
married or cohabiting, and the other third were
a combination of single at 17%, 9% divorced,
6% separated, or 2% widowed.
Most were supporting other family members
with their pay, presumably many of these children of the women, the majority of whom were
mothers.
This is a moderately well educated group. Almost half (47%) are secondary school graduates
and more than a quarter (27%) had completed
a college degree before migrating to the US.
Another 27% were less well educated, having
completed middle school or less in Brazil.
As recent immigrants, this was a population not
very well schooled in English. About half (51.5%)
said they “understand” English well or very well,
and the remainder assessed their understanding as
“fair” or “poor,” but many fewer rated themselves
as high on reading or writing ability. Almost two in
five, or 39.4%, said their reading ability was poor,
and only a third termed it “good” or “very good.”
In speaking, more than a quarter (27.8%) evaluated
their ability as poor, and only 38.4% as good or very
good.
As regards racial identification, most situated themselves within US racial terminology, inflected with
Brazilian understandings of race:
•
The majority (54%) self identified as “white,”
•
Almost one in five (21%) self-identified as
“Latino,” borrowing a North American term to
connote a mixture predominantly white
•
16% self-identified as “brown,” a close analogue
to the most frequently used Brazilian racial
categories of pardo or moreno
•
7% self-identified as “black.”
When participants were asked how long they had
been residing in the U.S., a surprising majority
(58%) responded that they have been here for
more than 10 years; 24% had been here between 6
and 9 years: 17% reported that they had been residing in the U.S. for less than 5 years.
The Working Life of Brazilian
Housecleaners In Massachusetts
The Brazilian Housecleaners Survey provides a
social portrait of the lives of Brazilian domestic
workers in Massachusetts and detailed information
on wages and working conditions.
Low wages, lack of benefits and widespread
wage theft
A large number of respondents reported problems
with the inadequacy of their pay and benefits and
not being paid for some hours that they work.
More than four out of ten (43.6%) also reported
that what they earn does not give them enough
money to meet basic expenses. Fully 81% of the
Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
survey respondents used their earnings to support
other people apart from themselves. In almost half
the cases (45%), the worker supported an additional two or more people. Almost half (44.2%)
also send remittances to Brazil to support family
members.
“The employers always leave notes about
what I should do, and many times tell me
to do things that are not agreed to be part
of my job.”
Various forms of wage theft were reported. Employers often do not feel the need to compensate workers for hours spent on extra tasks, often defined
by the employer as a favor and requested outside
the scope of regular work. Of the 25.6% of workers who reported having hours added in this way,
almost two thirds (65.9%) said that they were not
paid extra for them. The problem is that these “favors” are recurrent, not rare, and the workers have
no fixed job contract specifying duties. Thirteen
percent of respondents were not paid in one way
or another for the full hours that they work.
In addition to wage theft, many housecleaners
report other forms of employer manipulation and
failure to pay fairly for work preformed.
•
1.3% reported illegal deductions taken from
their pay
•
10% reported being paid with bad checks
•
86% reported being paid late
•
24% reported being charged for lost or broken
objects in the home
Domestic workers’ employers, operating in the
informal economy, rarely offer housecleaners
any paid time off. Only 9.1% received any pay for
national holidays that fell on their regular workday;
only 7.8% were granted unpaid maternity leave;
98% had never received a paid sick day; and 93%
had not received a paid vacation.
The widespread lack of job descriptions in the
housecleaning sector creates many opportunities
for employers to engage in various forms of exploitation that have severe impacts on the economic
Organizing with Love
“Domestic workers - who care for some of the
most important elements of our lives like our
families and our homes – are among the most
vulnerable workers in the United States today.
There are an estimated 2.5 million women
who labor as domestic workers. Domestic
workers serve as nannies, housekeepers, and
caregivers for the elderly. They often perform
the duties of nurses, art teachers, counselors,
tutors, assistants, and nutritionists as well.”
“The combination of these dynamics - the
racialized exclusion of domestic workers
from labor laws, the gendered devaluation of
women’s work in the home, the decentralized
structure of the industry and the economic
pressures facing immigrants from the global
South – makes domestic workers extremely
vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. In this
context, organizing is both difficult and absolutely essential.”
“During our campaigns, we learned that just
about everyone is connected – in one way or
another - to someone who works as a domestic worker.”
“Rather than framing our work as a narrow
workers’ rights campaign focused strictly on
the issues of domestic workers, we intentionally built the campaign around broader axes
of structural inequality. We based our frames
on our analysis of the root causes of the problems facing domestic workers including the
devaluing of “women’s work” in the home,
the legacy of slavery in the United States, and
the lack of a social safety net in the United
States and internationally.”
– Excerpted from Ai-jen Poo’s “Organizing with
Love: Lessons from the New York Domestic Workers Bill of Rights Campaign”
Ai-jen is the Director of the National Domestic
Workers Alliance. She was awarded a MacArthur
“Genius” Fellowship in September 2014.
11
Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
circumstances of these low income workers. Only
1.6% of the respondents had written contracts
that specify duties and hours. A majority (59%) of
housecleaners in the survey were confused about
the scope of their job duties, a systemic problem
for domestic work everywhere. Without a written
contract it is easy for employers to add extra duties
and extra hours to what is normally expected when
the work fay begins. This happens frequently to
more than a quarter (25.6%) of the workers. Within
the entire sample, many report working these
extra hours only under duress, or severe pressure
(10.6%). This kind of accretion of extra duties beyond the regular work, or “job creep,” is common
in all kinds of domestic work. Some nannies, for
example, whose work is to care for children, are
asked to do housecleaning, and some housecleaners are asked to care for children. Typically these
assignments occur randomly and unpredictably, as
well, whether or not the worker has other commitments scheduled for after the usual work time.
“I would like to have some security of employment, to not be fired without being
advised at least one week or one month
ahead of time, because it would give me
time to find another job.”
The lack of contracts also results in greater insecurity of employment and income. Over two thirds
(68%) of the domestic workers surveyed report
that their employers cancelled their job with little
or no notice, due to family vacations or perceived
lack of need for the scheduled service. Typically,
there is no pay given for these cancellations, even if
they only occur when the worker reports for work
at the home.
General working conditions: fast-paced,
without breaks, with high exposure to toxic
chemicals
The work done by housecleaners is unrelenting,
fast-paced, and pressured. If the housecleaner is
part of a group under the supervision of a “schedule owner,” the team must rush at a fast pace at
each house, without breaks, and any food or drink
tends to be taken in the car rushing between jobs.
12
Even those who work alone report they work at a
fast pace. Overall, almost two-thirds characterized
their work as “fast paced,” and a majority (53.8%)
reported working all day without any breaks, even
for eating.
“I fell on the stairs with the vacuum and
twisted my ankle. It really swelled up, but
my boss told me to keep working until I
was done. At the end of the day my boss
deducted money from my pay to fix the
vacuum.”
Few of the respondents have had any professional
training. Knowing how to do domestic work is
something learned on the job, often through trial
and error, sometimes through the supervision
given by schedule owners, and sometimes by employers. Most housecleaners among the immigrant
community in the United States did not previously
do housecleaning as a profession in Brazil. Almost
nine of every ten (86.7%) reported they had never
received any professional training for their work.
This has implications for their vulnerability to safety
and health dangers on the job. Lack of training is
also closely related to the relative lack of knowledge that domestic workers have about their labor
rights as workers, for instance, that domestic workers in Massachusetts have long been covered by the
the minimum wage law and overtime provisions, as
well as mandatory rest and meal breaks. [See BOX:
The Contributions of Our Foremothers]
Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
“It is really hard when we get to work,
and our employer tells us they do not
need us that day, and we are counting
on that money to pay our bills.”
One of the most significant safety hazards that
housecleaners experience in the workplace is
from chronic exposure to toxic chemicals that
are part of the commercial cleaning products
they use in their work. These are chemicals
designed for the level of use of the normal
homeowner. Exposure of the homeowner to the
chemicals is infrequent, and does not pose so
much of a risk for this reason. The danger for
housecleaners, however, is that they have intensive exposure to these chemicals, many times a
day, and day after day. A majority of the respondents (57%) report that they are aware that they
work with such dangerous products. Sometimes
housecleaners are not aware of the harms these
chemicals can pose for them. There are safer
alternatives, such as green cleaning products,
but almost five of six (84.3%) respondents report
they do not know about such products and for
that reason never or rarely use them. Fewer
than half (42.3%) wear safety gloves regularly.
Overall, three out of five (60%) do not routinely
use protective equipment such as gloves or eye
protectors, and 39% report they do not know
what to do in case of an accident. These findings
are similar to those from the occupational health
and safety survey as reported by Siqueira and
Roche in 2013 [see BOX: Occupational Health
Issues Reported by Domestic Workers].18
“I want more information on workers’
rights and about green products.”
Economic insecurity for domestic workers extends to risks of injury or illness. Domestic workers are not covered under workers’ compensation law unless they work more than 16 hours for
the same employer, which is rare for housecleaners to do. Even though Massachusetts has had
universal mandatory health insurance for seven
years, one of eight (13.4%) domestic workers in
The Massachusetts Domestic
Workers Bill of Rights—the nation’s
strongest
The Massachusetts Domestic Workers Bill of
Rights, passed by the legislature and signed
by the Governor in 2014, will guarantee domestic workers these labor rights:
•
The right to be paid for all working
time
•
Guaranteed (though unpaid) days of
rest
•
The right to sue if injured by coworker
•
Limits on deductions for food & lodging
•
The right to privacy for all workers
•
Protection against labor trafficking
•
The right to written evaluation
•
The right to ask for a written employment contract for those working 16 or
more hours
•
The right to document retention &
notice of rights
•
The right to notice/lodging/severance
before termination without cause for
live-ins
•
The right to protection against retaliation
•
The right to (unpaid) maternity leave,
without loss of employment – 8 weeks
for birth or adoption of 1 child, 16
weeks for twins
•
Access to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination for
discrimination complaints, including
sexual harassment [this provision took
effect September 24, 2014].
Unlike many states, Massachusetts labor law
already granted domestic workers the right
to minimum wage and overtime, although
wage theft has still been rampant. The Bill of
Rights will become effective on April 1, 2015
and will be enforced by the state’s Attorney
General.
13
Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
the survey reported that they lack health insurance
of any kind. Those immigrants who are undocumented are not eligible in any case for health insurance that would be affordable to them.
Employer mistreatment: modest but unacceptable incidence
Employer mistreatment and abuse of domestic
workers was reported at a modest, but unacceptable, level. Because housecleaners have multiple
employers, on the other hand, it increases their
chances of victimization by someone. One in ten
respondents reported being falsely accused of
stealing in cases where family members misplace
things and/or being verbally abused by being subjected to insults and name-calling. Four percent
reported being subjected to racial slurs. Almost 3%
had experienced threats of physical assault and/or
sexual harassment. Firing was the most common
form of mistreatment: over 4% of respondents
were fired for staying home with a sick family member, over 10% for asking for a raise in pay, and 12%
for being pregnant.
The Survey analysis strongly supported the conclusion found in previous studies that workers with
undocumented status are more likely to be darker
in skin color. The association between documentation status and greater incidence of employer mistreatment of workers, however, was only partially
and quite weakly upheld. Non-white racial minorities were less likely to be given unpaid leave from
work duties on national holidays and less likely to
be allowed to take unpaid time off for visits to the
doctor.
Analysis showed that workers newer to the profession of housecleaning suffered more injuries than
those who have been working longer. The Survey
asked about many potential types of injuries, including difficulty breathing; back injuries and other
strains or pulled muscles; wrist, shoulder, elbow
or hip pain; other soreness or pain; skin irritation;
contracted infectious illnesses, such as the flu;
injuries from needles and other sharp objects; and
contamination from body fluids. All these injuries
were experienced by at least some workers in the
sample, and a full 29.3% of respondents experienced some type of work injury during the previ-
14
ous 12 months. One injury - back injuries including
pulled back muscles - was positively associated with
increasing years of service as a domestic worker.
Almost a quarter of the respondents (23.7%) reported they saw their job as dangerous or hazardous in nature.
“I have experienced] abuse, screaming,
and discrimination on account of being
an immigrant and not knowing the language“
There was a downward trend in job injuries as
workers worked longer. This may reflect the caution and training that comes from doing the job
over a longer period. Workers with more experience may learn to protect themselves better. It
also probably reflects the fact that newer workers
mostly lack prior training in how to do the work in
a way that minimizes harm from workplace hazards. Only 7% of the domestic workers surveyed
had done domestic work prior to arriving in the
United States as immigrants. Most had worked in
white-collar service occupations in Brazil, such as
sales and clerical work and some were schoolteachers, bank workers, social service professionals,
store managers, government employees, accountants, administrative assistants, dental assistants,
and university students. Their jobs in Brazil reflect
the fact that Brazilian domestic workers in Massachusetts are fairly well educated. Prior to immigrating, more than a quarter had done at least
some university study, or had degrees, and almost
half were high school graduates. They are clearly a
population very capable of and amenable to training, which simply has not been made available to
them as domestic workers.
Research for action
The findings of the 2013 Massachusetts Brazilian
Housecleaners Survey are consistent with the recent national study by the NDWA19 and the previous state-based study conducted in 2005-2006.20
•
There is a high level of wage theft related to
poorly defined job duties and hours, chronic
“job creep,” and lack of contracts.
Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
•
Though housecleaner income is essential for
support of workers’ families, their incomes are
very insecure. They are often discharged without
notice when employers abruptly decide they no
longer need their services, or left without work
for weeks when families go on vacation without
notifying them.
•
There is a high level of exposure to toxic products and little knowledge or practice about
alternatives or how housecleaners can protect
themselves.
•
There is an unacceptable incidence of harassment, disrespectful treatment, and arbitrary and
punitive employer decisions.
The evidence that conditions for immigrant housecleaners in Massachusetts had not improved over
the past decade supported the campaign of the
Brazilian Immigrant Center and the Massachusetts
Coalition for Domestic Rights to change labor laws
in Massachusetts to provide domestic workers with
the legal status of “real workers” and to educate
domestic workers on ways to protect themselves
against the hazards of the job. Modeled on the legislation previously passed in New York, California and
Hawaii, “An Act Establishing a Domestic Workers Bill
of Rights” was introduced to the Massachusetts legislature in January 2013. In the fall of 2013, the Housecleaners Survey was presented in testimony given
by Brazilian Immigrant Center staff and domestic
workers at a public hearing for the Bill of Rights
before the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce
Development, at a colloquium at the University of
Massachusetts Boston and at a subsequent legislative
hearing.21 The Massachusetts Domestic Worker Bill
of Rights was approved by the legislature and signed
into law by Governor Deval Patrick in June 2014.
[See BOX: Domestic Worker’s Bill of Rights].
In addition to those workplace problems identified
in the Brazilian Housecleaners Survey that are addressed in the Massachusetts Domestic Workers Bill
of Rights, the Brazilian Immigrant Center has used
the findings to refine their educational campaigns
for legislators, lobbying arguments, and public messaging for organizing domestic workers. The Brazilian Immigrant Center has formed an alliance with
the US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety
and Health Administration’s Region One office to
develop the first-ever, two-hour Domestic Worker
Safety and Health Course. The training, covering
ergonomics, protection against blood-borne pathogens, toxic cleaning products, violence and discrimination in the workplace, and sexual harassment,
along with information on the provisions of the new
Bill of Rights, is being piloted in Massachusetts and
Connecticut.
During September 2014, the findings were also submitted for study to the Connecticut Task Force on
Domestic Workers, established by the Connecticut
General Assembly to investigate working conditions
for domestic workers for the purpose of defining appropriate new legislation advancing new labor rights
for these workers.
Worker Centers, CommunityLabor Partnerships & Contingent
Workers: Current and Future
Organizing Prospects
Domestic workers are among a growing group of
workers in today’s economy who are temporary, parttime, and largely lack the protections of the National
Labor Relations Act and other labor laws. Often
termed “independent contactors,” estimates are that
there are more than 42 million of these contingent
workers and that they may make up a quarter to a
third of the US workforce.22 Though some of these
jobs are in the professional ranks, like domestic workers many labor as individuals or in small groups in
isolated workplaces, under decentralized conditions
that make organizing difficult. Like domestic workers,
contingent workers may work without a contract and
with no job security. Like domestic workers, terms
of employment and working conditions are negotiated individually and job by job. Contingent workers
are heavily situated in the informal economy where
wages are low and workers are frequently immigrant
and female, and may be undocumented. Until recently these workers and industries were largely neglected
by organized labor.
Since the 1970s, community-based non-profit worker
centers have come together to represent the interests
of low wage and excluded workers. Over the past
15
Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
The Contributions of Our Foremothers
In 1935, the National Labor Relations Act finally
made organizing a union legal for workers in the
United States. But as part of the compromise
with Southern legislators to get the NLRA passed,
domestic workers and agricultural workers, the
Black workers of the South, were excluded from
the protections of the Act and left without the
right to organize. How did it happen that domestic workers in Massachusetts gained the right to
organize?
In 1970, the Women’s Service Club of Boston and
its indefatigable President Melnea Cass, championed the enactment of House 5797, An Act Making Domestic Employees Subject to the Labor
Laws. The cornerstone of this act was the right of
domestic workers to organize and freedom from
retaliation for exercising these rights. The act
also brought domestic workers under the protections of wage and hour law (minimum wage and
overtime), unemployment law, and workers compensation law for workers working more than 16
hours a week.
The Women’s Service Club initially was founded
as a neighborhood knitting club to support
service members of color fighting in World War I.
By 1919, the club had over 300 members, purchased a building, and incorporated its name and
mission of services and programs to the AfricanAmerican community. Melnea Cass was its third
president. After graduating as the valedictorian
of her class, she took a job as a domestic worker.
She became a grassroots organizer in her community registering African American women to
vote, joined the Boston branch of the NAACP and
eventually became its President. As a result of her
twenty years, immigrant worker centers, including
the Brazilian Immigrant Center, have proliferated
within the expanding space for organizing the growing numbers of immigrants who are being exploited
in low wage labor markets. An estimated 230 such
centers exist in at least 32 states.23 Place-based rather
than workplace- or employer-based, worker centers
16
activism, she was affectionately known as “the
First Lady of Roxbury.”
After being elected President of the Women’s
Service Club, Cass continued to organize movements to expand employment opportunities for
African American women. She organized the
Homemakers Training Program which certified
domestic workers so that they could receive social security and other governmental benefits.
On August 11, 1970, Cass wrote to Governor
Sargent in support of House 5797: “On your desk
is House Bill #5797 to be signed. It is a product
of the Women Service Club’s very diligent and
consistent efforts to make this a reality. We have
sponsored projects to assist those women and
men, especially black, who for many years were
relegated to household work because of discriminatory practices, customs, etc. They were exploited as you know. We are determined that this
shall pass away and that these forgotten workers
will share in the benefits of all other workers
especially in their categories. Will you please sign
this bill and give the Women’s Service Club the
honor of being present with you for a picture
which will be history for many people, especially
black women who will be affected.”
The Massachusetts Coalition for Domestic Workers has a proud legacy as it makes the rights mandated in 1970 and in 2014 a reality in the lives of
domestic workers.
Contributed by: Veronica Bopp, Volunteer, Greater
Boston Legal Services, whose extensive research
included original documents at the Massachusetts
Archives, and Monica Halas, Greater Boston Legal
Services.
frequently organize along ethnic and class lines and
where collective bargaining is not possible. The centers can and do intervene directly with employers to
support and advocate for individuals or small groups
in matters of wage theft, safety and health, discrimination, and worker compensation in case of injury.24
They also offer training, education, mediation, and
Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
legal representation; forward complaints to state and
federal labor authorities; and bring public attention
to both labor law scofflaws and model, “high road,”
employers.25
The centers also engage in civic action at the local,
state, and federal level, winning labor-friendly, more
inclusive ordinances and laws such as Domestic
Worker Bills of Rights and living wage protections.
Over 60 centers also maintain hiring halls that function to regulate minimum wage and other working
conditions within local markets, mainly in construction, but sometimes in domestic work.26 To increase
their visibility and power, worker centers have
formed national networks, including the National
Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON), Interfaith
Worker Justice, Restaurant Opportunity Center
(ROC), the Food Chain Workers Alliance, and the
National Domestic Worker Alliance (NDWA). Worker
centers recently have also begun to be invited to join
as affiliates of state and local labor councils.
Significant shifts in organized labor’s relationships
and outreach to contingent workers began to evolve
as the labor movement embraced proposals for progressive immigration reform. In 2006, the AFL-CIO
launched the National Worker Centers Partnership
that authorized worker centers to formally affiliate
with state labor federations and labor councils. The
labor-community coalitions that have resulted from
these engagements have drawn organized labor into
broad grassroots campaigns for immigration reform,
voting rights, and economic justice. Worker centers have lent their weight and organizing skills to
labor’s agenda, such as initiatives to raise the minimum wage and ensure paid sick days for workers.
The rapid passage of the Massachusetts Domestic
Worker Bill of Rights is a direct result of the partnership formed by the Brazilian Immigrant Center, the
Massachusetts Coalition for Domestic Workers and
the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. Labor’s engagement was
instrumental in building the political support necessary for the win. The statewide AFL-CIO, its President, the Labor Councils across the state, and every
SEIU local all contributed essential political support
and resources to the successful campaign.
The partnership between the National Domestic
Workers Alliance and the national AFL-CIO has also
had many benefits for domestic worker organizing.
The AFL-CIO is US labor’s official representative to
the International Labor Organization. The federation has included NDWA in its activities at the ILO,
including advocacy for the 2011 Convention 189 on
Decent Work for Domestic Workers, and has committed itself to support grassroots domestic worker
organizing through collaboration and support from
local and state labor councils. Such labor-worker
center partnerships obviously benefit both sides.
Worker centers gain from the labor movement’s
deep legislative and policy experience and support
at the local, state, and federal levels. The worker
centers, in their own turn, connect labor to wider
movements and new constituencies for organizing,
and help raise the floor in working conditions, pay,
and benefits for all working people.
Domestic worker organizations have spearheaded
a national coalition of labor and community organizations to address broader social issues of care in
our society. The Caring Across Generations Coalition advocates for a comprehensive approach that
expands and supports a strong home care workforce
and makes long-term services and supports affordable and accessible. They are bringing together social justice partners across a wide range of interests
(organized labor, senior advocates, community-labor
coalitions, women’s organizations, and domestic
workers) to build a national movement of the “caring majority” through culture change work; local,
state and federal policy advocacy; online campaigning; and field activities and civic engagement. 27
In some organized industries, such as construction,
17
Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
outreach to new ethnic constituencies to join union
apprenticeship programs is a promising direction
for growth in the organized workforce. Worker
center hiring halls also continue to grow in number,
especially for day laborers. Cooperatives and social
enterprise models are another possibility for promoting collective organizing and impacting working conditions, pay and benefits among domestic
workers and others. Massachusetts’s law actually
permits collective bargaining for domestic workers, a
heretofore never used opening that offers promising
possibilities for future organizing.
The current growing presence of worker center-
THE GLOBAL DOMESTIC WORKERS
MOVEMENT
The international domestic worker labor force of 53
million (83% female) is rapidly growing. One of every 13 female wageworkers on the planet is working
in the industry and the ratio is as high as one in four
in Latin America and the Caribbean, and almost one
in three in the Middle East. Most are international
labor migrants, who, in a “chain of care,” leave their
own families behind so that they can support them
at a distance by caring for others.
In September 2013, the global movement for domestic worker rights reached a new milestone in
organizing when the International Labor Organization’s “Convention on Decent Work for Domestic
Workers” (ILO Convention 189) went into effect.
The Convention was later augmented with passage
of Recommendation 201 addressing organizing
rights, advocacy, and research and policy development. These victories were the result of the hard
work of the International Domestic Workers Network (IDWF) representing affiliates from 33 countries. In recognition of this achievement, the IDWF
was awarded the George Meany/Lane Kirkland
Human Rights Award by the AFL-CIO at its national
convention in 2013.
Convention 189 articulates minimum standards
for fundamental labor rights, including fair pay and
benefits, working time, occupational safety and
18
labor partnerships is marked by deep collaboration
and complementarity that serve the interests of
America’s working families across the spectrum. It is
a productive and promising development for both
parties in a time of growing inequality and exploitation of all working people in our society. As demonstrated by the recent successes among domestic
workers, new models of organizing bring not only
better working conditions, but also dignity and visibility to workers. In these initiatives, partnerships
have been quite effective in growing the labor movement, as can be seen in the fact that they have come
under increasing attack by right-wing, anti-labor
forces everywhere.
health, social security, relations with private placement agencies, complaint and enforcement procedures, and special provisions for child workers,
migrant workers, and live-ins. The list is remarkably
similar to that found in US-based Domestic Worker
Bills of Rights, highlighting how common the workplace issues are in all corners of the globe.
Recommendation 201 calls for the right to organize
collectively, committing signatories of Convention
189 to: “Identify and eliminate any legislative or
administrative restrictions or other obstacles to the
right of domestic workers to establish their own organizations or to join the workers’ organizations of
their own choosing and to the right of organizations
of domestic workers to join workers’ organizations,
federations and confederations.”
Fifteen countries have ratified Convention 189
through new legislation and regulations as of 2014:
Argentina, Bahrain, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica,
the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, South Africa,
Italy, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Spain, Singapore,
Thailand, and Venezuela. In 2013, an even stronger
world organization, the International Domestic
Workers Federation, with 47 affiliate organizations
in 43 countries, was formed to continue the global
movement.
The International Domestic Workers Federation
website is at www.idwfed.org. Follow international
developments on their Facebook page.
Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON THE
WOMEN IN THE DOMESTIC
WORKER PORTRAIT PHOTOS
SONIA FELIX is a housecleaner who began at BIC
as a volunteer, and became a leader in the Massachusetts domestic workers organizing initiative.
She was active in her church, and the Boston-based
arts group, Step Up for Social Change, before returning to Brazil in 2014 after a 13-year stay in the
Boston area.
ANGELA SENA is a domestic worker, who does
elderly care, and is Director of Cultural Affairs for
the Central de Trabalhador Imigrante Brasileiro
in Framingham MA. Before coming to the United
States from Brazil, she finished a university degree
and operated a business involved in caring for the
elderly.
FATIMA CHRASKA was an elementary school teacher in Brazil, and has lived in the United States for
17 years. She has done all kinds of domestic work,
including nannying, elder care, and housecleaning,
and has participated actively in the Massachusetts
and national domestic worker movements.
SONIA SOARES has been a domestic worker for
20 years in the US. Formerly in Brazil she was a
mechanical engineer, and a high school mathematics teacher. After being involved in BIC, she was
trained as a certified mediator for the Domestic
Worker Mediation program. She testified on behalf
of the pending Domestic Workers Bill of Rights as
one of two worker representatives before the Massachusetts legislature’s Joint Labor & Workforce
Development Committee in November 2013.
LUCI SANTOS MORRIS is a domestic worker who
between 2012-2014 was the Domestic Worker Community Liaison for the Brazilian Immigrant Center,
and served as worker representative for BIC on the
board of the National Domestic Workers Alliance
(NDWA).
dards for Domestic Workers: Lessons Learned from the
Campaign for a Domestic Worker Bill of Rights in New
York State” International Labour Office; Global Union
Research Network (GURN). - Geneva: Retrieved from
http://www.gurn.info/en/discussion-papers/no14jun10-winning-fair-labour-standards-for-domestic-workers-lessons-learned-from-the-campaign-for-a-domesticworker-bill-of-rights-in-new-york-state.
Endnotes
1
Van Raaphorst, Donna L. (1988). Union Maids Not
Wanted: Organizing Domestic Workers 1870-1940.
New York: Praeger Publishers.
Adair, Karen (1990). “Organized Women Workers in
Seattle: 1900-1918.” Unpublished Master’s Thesis. Seattle:
University of Washington.
Poo, Ai-jen, “Organizing with Love: Lessons from the
New York Domestic Workers Bill of Rights Campaign,”
Domestic Workers United, Retrieved from http://www.
cew.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Organizingwithlove-FullReport-Cover.pdf.
Mark, Kaite (2014). “Domestic Workers: An Ongoing
Fight for Human Rights, Respect, and Dignity at the
Workplace.” Retrieved from http://academic.evergreen.
edu/curricular/ageofirony/aoizine/kaite.html
2
Hunter, Tera W. (1997). To ‘Joy My Freedom: Southern
Black Women’s Lives and Labors After the Civil War.
Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
3
Perea Juan F., (2011) “The Echoes of Slavery: Recognizing the Racist Origins of the Agricultural and Domestic
Worker Exclusion from the National Labor Relations
Act,” 72 Ohio State Law Journal 95. Retrieved from
http://lawecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl
e=1150&context=facpubs. Hunter (1997).
4
5
Anderson, Bridget. (2000) Doing the Dirty Work? The
Global Politics of Domestic Labour. New York: Zed Books
Ltd.
Hobden, Claire E. (2010) “Winning Fair Labour Stan-
Bapat, Sheila, Part of the Family? Nannies, Housekeepers, Caregivers and the Battle for Domestic Workers’
Rights, Brooklyn: Ig Publishing (2014)
6
Shah, Hina and Marci Seville (2012) “Domestic Worker
Organizing: Building a Contemporary Movement for
Dignity and Power.” 75 Albany Law Review 413.
7
Shah and Seville (2012).
8
http://idwfed.org/
9
Domestic Workers United (2006), “Home Is Where The
Work Is: Inside New York’s Domestic Work Industry.”
Retrieved from http://www.datacenter.org/reports/homeiswheretheworkis.pdf.
19
Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
Mujeres Unidas y Activas, the Day Labor Program
Women’s Collective of La Raza Centro Legal, and the
DataCenter (2007), “Behind Closed Doors: Working
Conditions of California Household Workers.” Retrieved
from http://www.datacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/
behindcloseddoors.pdf
National Domestic Workers Alliance (2012). “Home
Economics: the Invisible and Unregulated World of
Domestic Work”. Chicago: NDWA and the University
of Illinois Chicago Data Center. Retrieved from http://
www.domesticworkers.org/sites/default/files/HomeEconomicsEnglish.pdf.
10
11
The full report, “A Social Profile of Brazilian Housecleaners in Massachusetts” from the Brazilian Immigrant Center (January 2014) is available at http://cdn.umb.edu/
images/cla_p_z/BRAZILIAN IMMIGRANT CENTER-_SIFUMB_Final_Report___2014.pdf
Fritz, Catarina (2010). Brazilian Immigration and the
Quest for Identity. El Paso, Texas: LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC.
13
Margolis, Maxine L. (2008). “September 11th and
Transnationalism: the Case of Brazilian Immigrants in the
United States,” Human Organization 67(1): 1-11
14
Fleischer, Soraya (2002). Passando a América a Limpo:
O Trabalho De Housecleaners Brasileiras Em Boston,
Massachusetts. São Paulo, Brazil: Annablume Editora.
15
Fritz (2010); Margolis (2008).
16
NDWA (2012).
Siqueira, C. Eduardo, (2007) “Project COBWEB: Collaboration for Better Work Environment for Brazilians,”
University of Massachusetts Lowell. Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241832178_
Project_COBWEB_A_Report_on_Brazilian_Immigrant_
Workers_in_Massachusetts.
18
Siqueira and Roche (2013).
19
National Domestic Worker Alliance, (2012).
20
Siqueira 2007.
20
Narro, Victor (2013) “Perspectives: Worker Centers
and the AFL-CIO National Convention.” Retrieved from
http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Organizing-Bargaining/
Perspectives-Worker-Centers-and-the-AFL-CIO-NationalConvention
Worker Institute (2013). “Chrystal Ball: Contingent
Workers Represent Future of the Economy.” Cornell University ILR School Worker Institute News, November 6,
2013. Retrieved from http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/workerinstitute/news/Contingent-Workers.html
22
Narro (2013).
Narro, Victor (2013)
23
Siqueira, C. Eduardo and Andrea Roche (2013) “Occupational Health Profile Of Brazilian Immigrant Housecleaners In Massachusetts.” New Solutions 3(3): 505-520
12
17
21
Melendez, Edwin; A. Valenzuela, Jr.; N. Theodore; A.
Visser; and Ana Luz Gonzalez (2007). “Worker Centers
and Labor Market Outcomes.” Los Angeles: Center for
the Study of Urban Poverty. Retrieved from http://www.
csup.ucla.edu/publications/Worker Center and Labor
Market Outcomes.pdf/view
Rolfson, Bruce (2013). “Immigrant workers: Worker centers better place to educate immigrants about job safety,
study finds.” Occupational Safety & Health Reporter 43
OSHR 465.
Eidelson, Josh (2013). “Alt-Labor.” The American
Prospect. January. Retrieved from http://prospect.org/
article/alt-labor.
24
Fine, Janice (2006). Worker Centers: Organizing Communities at the Edge of the Dream. Ithaca, New York:
Cornell University Press.
25
Theodore, Nik (2010). “Realigning Labor: Toward a
Framework for Collaboration between Labor Unions
and Day Labor Worker Centers. “ New York: Working
Group on Labor & Community Partnerships, Neighborhood Funders Group. Retrieved from http://www.
fcgworks.com/clients/nfg/website-files/NFG-RealigningLabor-Labor-Unions-and-Day-Labor-Worker-Centers.pdf.
26
Poo, Ai-jen (2011). “A Twenty-First Century Organizing
Model: Lessons from the New York Domestic Workers
Bill of Rights Campaign.” New Labor Forum 2011: 51-55.
27
http://www.caringacross.org/
Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing in Massachusetts and Beyond
Resources
Brazilian Immigrant Center
Domestic Worker/Employer Mediation Project;
Domestic Worker Law & Policy Clinic; Immigrant
Justice Project; Worker’s Rights Project; Health &
Safety Training
14 Harvard Ave, 2nd Floor
Allston, MA 02134 617-783-8001
www.braziliancenter.org BIC@braziliancenter.org
Legal Resources/Access to Lawyers
Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS)
(617) 371-1234 www.gbls.org
Legal Advocacy and Resource Center (LARC) 617603-1700 or toll-free 1-800-342-LAWS
www.larcma.org
Mass Legal Help
www.masslegalhelp.org
National Lawyers Guild Lawyer Referral Service
(617) 227-7008
http://www.nlgmass.org/lawyer-referral-service/
Massachusetts Bar Association Lawyer
Referral Service
617-654-0400 or 866-MASS-LRS
http://www.masslawhelp.com/
Victim Rights Law Center
(for victims of sexual assault)
617-399-6720
http://www.victimrights.org/
Wage and Hour Questions
Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, Fair Labor
Division
One Ashburton Place
Boston, MA 02108
Fair Labor Hotline: 617-727-3465
http://www.mass.gov/ago/bureaus/business-andlabor/the-fair-labor-division-folder/
US Department of Labor, Wage & Hour Division
Phone: 1-866-487-9243
http://www.dol.gov/whd/
Workplace Health and Safety
Occupational Health Surveillance Program
http://www.mass.gov/eohhs/gov/departments/dph/
programs/occupational-health-surveillance.html
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
OSHA Regional Offices, Region I,
JFK Federal Building, Room E340
Boston, MA 02203
617-565-9860 http://www.osha.gov
Workers’ Compensation Benefits
Boston Bar Association Lawyer Referral
Service
617-742-0625 or 800-552-7046
http://www.bostonbarlawyer.org/
Discrimination
Massachusetts Commission Against
Discrimination
One Ashburton Place
Sixth Floor, Room 601
Boston, MA 02108
617-994-6000
http://www.mass.gov/mcad/
Department of Industrial Accidents
Boston: 617-727-4900
Fall River: 508-676-3406
Lawrence: 978-683-6420
Springfield: 413-784-1133
Worcester: 508-753-2072
http://www.mass.gov/lwd/workers-compensation/dia/
21
The Brazilian Immigrant Center is a grassroots community organization that
supports immigrant workers on issues of workplace and immigrant rights. Through
organizing, advocacy, education, leadership training, capacity building, civic
participation, and policy analysis we promote our community’s exercise of its civil and
human rights. We join Brazilian and other immigrants in organizing with allies against
economic, social and political exclusion in order to create a more just society for all.
The Labor Resource Center (LRC) at UMass Boston is an undergraduate education
and research center. The mission of the LRC is to advance the interests of workers and
their organizations through education and research. Our work centers on the belief
that the labor movement, representing both organized and unorganized workers, is an
essential force for economic and social justice. Our education and training programs
enhance students’ skills and knowledge as leaders, activists, and citizens. Our research
initiative, “The Future of Work in Massachusetts,” is focused on issues faced by low wage
women workers, especially women of color.