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 On April 13th, over 200 domestic workers and their supporters from throughout California converged in Sacramento to call for adoption of the California Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. Following a rally outside the State Capitol, domestic workers and their supporters packed the hearing room, lobby and staircase for the Assembly Labor committee hearing where the bill was passed 5-1.
Based on New York’s landmark law, the California legislation would create guidelines for employers of housekeepers, nannies and other workers in an industry that is unregulated and without clearly defined work benefits. Authored by Assemblymembers Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) and V.Manuel Perez (D-Coachella), the bill now moves on to be heard in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
“This victory signifies that we’re moving step by step on the path to victory to win rights that have never been recognized in this dignified work.” said Maria Reyes of Mujeres Unidas y Activas, a Bay Area Latina workers organization that is spearheading the campaign along with other domestic worker-led groups who make up the
Continue reading Workers Push for California Domestic Workers Bill of Rights
By Erica Smiley, on December 10th, 2010
Report Introduced on International Human Rights Day
 At a time when Republicans in several states are threatening to eliminate the right of workers to organize and collectively bargain, representatives from 9 different sectors release “Unity for Dignity: Expanding the Right to Organize to Win Human Rights at Work,” a report highlighting ongoing efforts to dramatically expand workers’ human right to organize and collectively bargain. The report is being launched around the country, including in San Francisco, New York and Birmingham, Alabama symbolically on December 10th, International Human Rights Day, in order to re-frame the struggle to expand the right-to-organize as a human right.
The Excluded Workers Congress and the report highlight workers who have historically been excluded from labor protections, the right to organize, and underrepresented in the labor movement – domestic workers, farmworkers, taxi drivers, restaurant workers, day laborers, guestworkers, workers from Southern “right to work” states, workfare workers and formerly incarcerated workers.
Jobs with Justice has played an active role both nationally and within coalitions from Florida, DC and Tennessee—helping to connect the creation of the Excluded Workers Congress to the necessity of building and strengthening the labor
Continue reading Excluded Workers Unite to Expand the Human Right to Organize
By Erica Smiley, on October 6th, 2010
After launching the Excluded Workers Congress at the US Social Forum in Detroit earlier this summer (see video footage below), representatives from 9 different sectors gathered in Washington, DC last week to lay plans to dramatically expand workers’ rights to organize. Workers in these sectors are fighting exclusions from the National Labor Relations Act, minimum wage laws and the labor market in general among other barriers to the right to organize.
Led by the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the National Day Laborers’ Organizing Network, Jobs with Justice and the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity, the Congress discussed upcoming efforts ranging from the creation of an inter-agency taskforce at the Department of Labor to address the issues of excluded workers to the passage of the POWER Act which would protect guest workers from employer retaliation if they file a labor complaint.
“Workers in Florida do not have the right to organize. We are a right-to-work-for-less state,” said Denise Diaz of Central Florida Jobs with Justice. “It’s important to be here to identify strategies that will help us roll back the backwards policies that prevent southern workers from having the right to organize a union.”
Leaders came from the taxi
Continue reading ‘Excluded’ Workers Gather to Lay Groundwork for Strengthening US Labor Movement
By Allison Fletcher Acosta, on August 31st, 2010
 This morning, New York Governor Patterson signed into law the first-ever U.S. law that upholds domestic workers’ rights. 200,000 nannies, housekeepers, and elder caregivers in New York will be covered under a law that provides guaranteed sick days, overtime pay, a day of rest, protection from discrimination, and notice before termination. This groundbreaking victory is a result of a six-year campaign led by Domestic Workers United and supported by a broad coalition of labor and community organizations, including JwJ coalitions in NY State.
“Today we correct an historic injustice by granting those who care for the elderly, raise our children and clean our homes the same essential rights to which all workers should be entitled,” Governor Paterson said. “I am grateful to the sponsors for their extraordinary efforts to enact this landmark bill, and most of all to those domestic workers who dreamed, planned, organized and then fought for many years, until they were able to see an injustice undone.”
The victory in
Continue reading First-Ever Law Protecting Domestic Workers’ Rights Signed in New York
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