The following is an article I wrote on domestic worker organizing for Labor Notes, based on my interviews over the Summer with organizers in this emerging social movement. An edited version of this piece will appear in next months Labor Notes... http://labornotes.org/magazine Domestic Worker Organizing: New Front in the emerging “Non-Traditional” Labor Movement by Jerry Mead-Lucero For over two years, Marian, a Colombian immigrant and a housekeeper in Roslyn, New York, worked 18 hours a day, six days a week for about two dollars an hour. The family that employed her fired her without notice, kicking her out of the home and leaving her with nowhere to turn for support. After enduring months of verbal and physical abuse by her employer, “Vivian”, an Indian immigrant and nanny in Manhattan, refused the orders of her boss. Her boss’s response was to strike her with a sandal and kick her out the house without her pay or her passport. “Judy” a Malaysian immigrant and housekeeper on one occa...

Alexis De Simone with Casa of Maryland, one of the organizations involved in organizing domestic workers, talks about their work and the decision at the USSF to form a national coalition of domestic worker organizations. The national gathering of domestic workers organizations at the USSF was one of the highlights of the forum, and perhaps the most important labor movement development at the forum. http://www.archive.org/details/AlexisDeSimonUSSF

Joycelyn Campbell, a Nanny from Manhattan, an immigrant from Barbados, and a leader in the Domestic Workers United organization discuss the lack of legal protections for domestic workers in the United States and the roots of this reality in racism as well as U.S. economic and foreign policy… http://www.archive.org/details/USSF-DomesticWorkersUnited1