| Monday afternoon, in a small and very crowded room at the Dwyer Cultural Center in Morningside Heights, Governor Paterson signed the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights into law. This is the first law in the nation to provide workplace protections to domestic workers including: the right to overtime pay, three paid days of rest, the right to disability benefits as applicable to other workers, and the removal of a domestic worker exemption from the Human Rights law. The Governor remarked: 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… 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.” Domestic workers—and farm workers—were excluded from the National Labor Relations Act in 1935 as part of a political compromise with Southern Senators.
As he signed the bill, Governor Paterson asked aloud “What makes a law? Is it the signature on the bill? Or is it the years of hard work from everyone in this room?“ As I looked around the room I was struck by the many individuals and groups that came together for so long to pass this law. Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, whose employer network Employers for Justice was instrumental in moving the campaign forward, was there. There were representatives from the NY State Legislature, including State Senator Diane Savino. There were representatives from local grassroots organizations, like CAAAV: Uniting Asian Communities, and national alliances, like the InterAlliance Dialogue. Radical feminists and union members alike showed up in support and celebration. It was all of those people, working together, that made the law.
More than 200,000 elder care workers, nannies, and housekeepers in New York are affected by this new law and they know that this victory is not the end. Here in New York workers and employers will need to be educated and these rights will have to be enforced. Nationally, there are 49 other states where domestic workers are still excluded. But this victory opens the door for those whose work is not respected equally to step into the fight and to win.
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