We Rise Training

The 200,000 domestic workers in NYC, 80% immigrant and 90% women of color, have been devastated by the pandemic. Domestic work is rooted in a legacy of slavery and punitive immigration policies in the US - while the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights was passed in 2010, workers still lack basic protections and rights to collectively bargain or unionize. As domestic workers provided unacknowledged essential care during the pandemic (cleaning homes, caring for the elderly, adults with disabilities and children), they faced health risks and fatalities, overwhelming job loss, lack of basic US labor law protections, and exclusion from the majority of relief efforts. At the same time as the pandemic, uprisings against police brutality and inadequate labor protections for essential workers galvanized more people into social movements than any time in recent history. This is a vital moment to expand domestic worker power to ensure access to essential benefits like paid sick days and family leave, living wages, a path to citizenship, and to ultimately transform the economy to one that values care and feminized labor, over profits and production. Given the dynamics of workers employed in private homes, it becomes even more critical for us to train a mass of workers in worker rights and negotiations coupled with a broader organizing strategy with employers to raise standards across the industry.