DWU Gears Up for Senate Vote on Domestic Workers Bill of Rights

For six years, domestic workers and supporters have worked tirelessly to move New York State to pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. The bill provides key protections and basic rights for nannies, housekeepers, and elder caregivers who are privately employed in households throughout New York. Working without a safety net, isolated and excluded from existing labor laws, domestic workers face harassment, abuse and violence in the workplace.

The time has finally come for domestic workers to get justice. On Tuesday, June 1, the New York State Senate will finally take a vote on the landmark legislation. Members and supporters of Domestic Workers United (DWU) will travel to Albany early in the morning to urge senators one last time to vote YES to protect and recognize the workers who make all other work possible.

We invite everyone to join us in taking our rallying cry far into the halls of the state capitol building. Call or email your senate representatives: http://www.nysenate.gov.

Let them hear from you wherever you are.

Passing the Senate bill will take us one giant step closer to securing rights and protections long denied to domestic workers. We will still have a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights to get signed into law, however. Last year, the Assembly passed an historic measure to grant domestic workers coverage under existing labor laws. We must bring the two bills together and get the state legislature and governor to agree on a bill that establishes basic labor standards for the domestic work industry. The rights included in the Senate bill - paid sick days, paid vacation, paid holidays, and notice - are rights that isolated domestic workers have no hope of negotiating on their own.

As the first legislation of its kind nationally, the New York Domestic Workers Bill of Rights will set a precedent for labor standards for domestic workers in the entire United States. We have an opportunity now to bring our labor laws up to speed with the reality of workers in the 21st century and to correct generations of exclusion and injustice.