New Tactics Win Big for Worker Rights
This Labor Day, many in the US labor movement are celebrating a historic victory for the Domestic Workers United (DWU), whose 10-year struggle for the rights of nannies, elder care aids, and house cleaners bore fruit this week, as New York Governor David Patterson signed the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights into law. This new bill expands the basic labor rights that many American workers take for granted - time off, protection from wage theft and sexual harassment - and extends them to a sector largely excluded from the protections of labor law. Colorlines Magazine has a great article about the significance of this victory.
Domestic workers have long been ignored by traditional unions because they were considered impossible to organize: they work in isolated environments for tens of thousands of individual employers, they sometimes depend on their employers for housing as well as a salary, and many of them are undocumented immigrants. But DWU utilized an organizing strategy that is gaining popularity and winning battles across the nation: the worker center model. Traditional unions tend to work in industries and workplaces with large numbers of employers, organize workers to vote for a union in an election, and negotiate a contract that covers the entire workplace. But this model doesn't work for the millions of workers who are employed in workplaces too small to be worth organizing, are temporary employees or day laborers, or are undocumented, and can be threatened with arrest and deportation by their employers if they're found to be organizing.
Workers Centers organize outside of an one individual workplace. They provide education, training, support, and advocacy for employees across a sector, be it warehouse workers, restaurant employees, day laborers, or domestic workers. They depend on solidarity between workers and from the broader community to bring pressure through lawsuits and public protests against abusive employers. They also engage in research and advocacy to pass workers rights legislation like the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. Workers centers have also been at the forefront of building economic justice through worker ownership, helping their members create worker coops where they can set the terms of their employment and earn a living wage. The Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC) in New York helped found COLORS Restaurant, a worker owned fine dining establishment that also serves as a training center for ROC members.
As alternative worker rights organizations like ROC, DWU, and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers continue to win victories and improve the lives of their members, mainstream unions are taking note of the power and possibility that lies outside of their historical member base.
