Raizah is among dozens of domestic workers at the U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta who formed the National Domestic Workers Alliance.

Marcy Rein, a communications specialist with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Organizing Department, took part in the recent U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta.

First, a caution: You might read many articles describing wildly different events at the U.S. Social Forum. They could all be true. It was that big.

Organizers estimate nearly 10,000 people passed through the June 27–July 1 event in Atlanta. Walking through the crowds, you could hear voices from the Deep South, gravelly New York accents, California slang and Appalachian twangs and Spanish—not to mention other languages my untaught ears couldn’t identify. Participants brought with them their experiences organizing within a wide range of human rights issues working within the many ground zeroes created by corporate globalization.

They talked about being displaced by Hurricane Katrina and by the gentrification running amok in cities around the country. They described being forced to leave their home countries because they couldn’t make a living and about not being able to make a living because the work left their hometowns. They talked about the violence they survived as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people and as women, immigrants and indigenous peoples, people of color, workers and poor people and any combination of these.

But somehow, even with all this hard stuff on the table all the time, the forum delivered on the inspiration promised by the opening march. Organizers constantly stressed the need to understand how our issues connect and to look for what unites us instead of what divides us. As Marisa Franco from San Francisco’s POWER (People Organized to Win Employment Rights) said at the opening of the June 29 session:

We’re not talking about a platform or demands here. We’re talking about how we can make things work better. We must connect with each other, walk vision as well as talk vision. No one else will do it for us. If another U.S. is necessary, another “us” is necessary, too.

Forum participants took this to heart. This was a very friendly event. We talked everywhere. We talked in the MARTA trains, in the food court by the Westin Hotel, walking long blocks in the heat from one site to the other. We talked under the overhang of the Civic Center building as Thursday night’s thunderstorm split the sky with lavender lightning and dumped buckets of water on the ground. We arrived late for things because we couldn’t stop talking. One such chat led me to one of the most inspiring workshops I attended, a panel on domestic workers organizing.

Domestic workers are…dynamite! 

The back of the T-shirt made by New York’s Domestic Workers United (DWU) reads:

Caribbean–Asian–African–Latina women unite! We have a dream that some day all work will be respected equally.

Domestic workers organizing all over the country took a step toward that dream at the forum. After meeting for three days, they agreed June 30 to form the National Domestic Workers Alliance. The alliance will draw 13 groups together, most from the East and West coasts: DWU, Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, Damayan (organizing Filipino workers), Andolan (organizing South Asian workers), CAAV (organizing Asian communities), the Unity Housecleaners of the Workplace Project, Las Senoras de Santa Maria, CASA, Mujeres Unidas y Activas, the Filipino Workers’ Center, POWER, the Day Labor Program Women’s Collective of the La Raza Centro Legal and CHIRLA (Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles).

Members of all these groups addressed a packed room at their June 28 panel. Most of the audience members were women of color. Children played around the edges. Translation equipment changed hands as the speakers changed. “Now we’re switching to Spanish,” the moderator would say. “Please give your equipment to someone who needs it.”

Jocelyn Campbell from DWU set the context at the start as she framed the issue.

Neoliberal economic policies push women out of their home countries in search of work.

A DWU survey found that 99 percent of New York domestic workers were immigrants.

“The millions we remit each year has substituted for cash crops,” said Linda from Damayan. “Human labor in the Philippines is like cars in Detroit.”

Whether they live in their employers’ homes or commute, whether they work as nannies, housekeepers, caregivers for the elderly and disabled, they find themselves outside the protection of labor laws, vulnerable, often abused.

Some 33 percent of these report mental, physical or sexual abuse by their employer on the DWU survey, Campbell said. Almost half regularly work overtime and 43 percent work 50 hours a week or more. Many come on special visas signed by their employers and are afraid to complain of even the worst abuses for fear of deportation.

Raizah, a member of Andolan, told the workshop she had been in such a situation.

“Andolan helped me so much, and now I am here,” she said. “I am so happy today because of you and you and you,” she said, pointing around the room.

“All right, sister!” someone yelled, and then she uncorked. A small, roundish woman in a white sari, she stood with her fist in the air, telling the crowd:

“They say we don’t need anything, we don’t need food, time off, our rights, but we need all of it and we will have it!

“Sí, se puede!” the crowd screamed and clapped. In the back of the room, a few of the members of the Mississippi Workers’ Center teared up as she spoke.

Although they all work a bit differently, all the groups in the new alliance offer information on workers’ rights and support to women who exercise them. They consciously develop women’s leadership and work to change social policy.

The New York City groups got the “Nanny bill” passed in 2003. The legislation requires employment agencies that place domestic workers to tell employers about labor law. Coalitions in California and New York also have been working to change state law. The New York groups are organizing around the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights. The proposed law would establish a living wage, health care and basic benefits for all domestic workers. The bill has not yet passed the state legislature but has attracted substantial support.

Members of several unions attended a labor solidarity breakfast in New York City on June 1 that kicked off a week of actions on the bill. A Town Hall meeting June 7 drew 350 participants, including AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, whose mother was a domestic worker. The New York union movement is committed to supporting them, said New York Central Labor Council Executive Director Ed Ott.

Middle class people hire immigrants to take care of their children so they can work. The work those immigrants do is completely consistent with the history of the American trade union movement. We respect it, we honor it, we support it and we will do what we can to see they get the legislation passed to secure their rights.

By forming the alliance, the member groups hope to strengthen their local work and begin to make changes on a national level. In three days of meetings at the U.S. Social Forum, some 50 women from the member groups exchanged information on strategy and politics, said Carla from DWU.

We talked about base-building, campaigns, media and alliances on the first day. Lots of the discussion was very practical, on the little things that matter. On the second day, we did a workshop on globalization.

They ended their Thursday panel with a rousing calypso song from DWU—“Stand up and unite/so we can fight, fight, fight/ for we Bill of Rights”—and one final call-and-response chant:

“Domestic workers are?

Dynamite!

Domestic workers are?

Dynamite!

Domestic workers are?

Dynamite!

Tick-tick-tick-tick-BOOM!”

DWU published the results of their survey in a 2006 report, Home is Where the Work Is, available here. Or call them at 718-220-7391, ext. 23. Mujeres Unidas y Activas and the Day Labor Program Women’s Collective of La Raza Centro Legal published Behind Closed Doors, also the product of a survey done by members. Or call 415-621-8140 or 415-553-3406.

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