“She’s like a member of our family.” Behind the well-intentioned
sentiment, so often said of nannies and caregivers, lurks a sad truth.
To be “like a member” of the family is a far cry from being a family
member.
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(
VIDEO: Ai-jen Poo Discusses the Domestic Worker)
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This week, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the University of
Illinois at
Chicago and the DataCenter are releasing the first ever
national survey of domestic workers,
Home Economics: The Invisible and Unregulated World of Domestic Work,
which reveals how vulnerable these workers are to abuse. Take Anna’s story from the report:
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“Having honed her child development skills as a teacher in the
Philippines,
Anna was hired as a live-in nanny for a family of four in Midtown
Manhattan … At night, she sleeps between her charges on a small mattress
placed on the floor between their beds. She has not been given a single
day off in 15 months. Like many domestic workers, Anna’s pay is low …
On average, then, she is paid just $1.27 per hour.”
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(
MORE: The Tiger Nanny: The Missing Link in the Parenting Debate)
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While not every domestic worker — nanny, housecleaner or caregiver
for the elderly — faces conditions as bad as Anna’s, the survey found
that 23% of all domestic workers and 67% of live-in workers are paid
below the minimum wage. Without formal contracts, tasks expand and
workdays lengthen, often without any additional pay. Employers lack
guidelines or standards, and domestic workers are left to toil alone in
private homes unseen by co-workers with whom they could compare.
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Researchers interviewed 2,086 workers and a third reported that they
worked five or more hours without breaks, and few workers report
receiving overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours per week. Many
workers are paid late, which, combined with their low wages, leads to
financial hardship: 40% of workers reported having to pay rent or other
essential bills late, while 20% of workers reported that there were
times when they went without food because they could not afford it.
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Then there are the physicals hazards of the work. Housecleaners must
regularly work with toxic chemicals. Caregivers for the elderly often
injure themselves when lifting the people in their care, while many
nannies report contracting an illness from the children they look after.
Meanwhile, only 4% of workers receive health insurance from their
employers, and fewer than 9% work for employers who pay into Social
Security.
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(
MORE: Viewpoint: Will Family Issues Finally Be Addressed?)
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According to the Census Bureau, there were 726,437 people working
such jobs in private households in 2010, up 10% from 2004, but the
actual number is undoubtedly higher as the census estimate doesn’t
include people hired through agencies and undercounts undocumented
workers. As people live longer and the baby-boom generation reaches
retirement age, the nation’s reliance on the domestic workforce will
only grow. Yet despite the importance of these caregivers to society,
they are excluded from the basic workplace rights that others in this
country take for granted. This discrepancy dates back to the 1930s, when
the National Labor Relations Act and Fair Labor Standards Act were
first written. At the time, Southern members of Congress insisted on the
exclusion of domestic workers and farm workers, who were predominantly
African American, and many of those exclusions remain in place today.
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We have an opportunity to reverse this history of discrimination,
with policy changes — at the state and federal levels — that establish
basic rights and standards and ensure that these workers can live with
dignity and safety. Over the past decade, domestic workers in
California and
New York have
organized to pass Domestic Workers Bills of Rights in their state
legislatures. Workers in Massachusetts and Illinois are now developing
their own bills of rights, but it’s time for more states to take up the
task.
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In a nation based on the values of liberty and justice for all, the
people who are raising our children should not have trouble feeding or
caring for their own children, and the people who provide care for our
elders should receive support for their own retirement. We should honor,
respect and value the precious labor that they provide: the labor of
love that serves as the foundation of our economy.
Gillian Laub for TIME
Ai-jen Poo in Madison Square Park, in New York City
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