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Myrla Baldonado left the Philippines for Chicago six years ago. Most of her time here, she cared for elderly people in their homes, attending to their round-the-clock needs. She made their beds, fixed meals, and monitored them for symptoms of stroke or illness. Baldonado worked like this for years—putting in 96-hour weeks—at $4 an hour.

“Like most immigrants, I tried not to pay attention to it,” says Baldonado.

She said that wage was standard, what other caregivers got, too. And she needed a job.

“But then when I started being shouted at and I felt being discriminated for not being an original English speaker, I felt so bad,” says Baldonado.

Read the rest of the story at theworld.org »

Pramila Jayapal of We Belong Together and Myrla Baldonado of Caring Across Generations to be honored in Washington, DC

WASHINGTON, DC – On Monday, May 6th, the White House will honor fifteen Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women as “Champions of Change.” A part of the White House’s observance of AAPI Heritage Month, this event will recognize Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander women who are doing extraordinary things to create a more equal, safe, and prosperous future for their communities and the country.

“These fifteen women represent the strength and diversity of the AAPI community. These leaders – in business, advocacy, philanthropy, sports, the arts, and academia – are wonderful examples for young women across the country,” said Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President and Chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls.

Domestic workers are once again pushing state lawmakers to approve a bill that would give them overtime pay and breaks. Governor Brown vetoed a similar measure last year; it's unclear what his position is this time around.

There are more than 200,000 domsetic workers in California, most of them in southern California. Amelia Bernachea of Los Angeles said she earned just $70 for a 24-hour day when she recently cared for an elderly woman with Alzheimer's.  

She cooked meals, changed linens, and repositioned the woman every couple of hours to prevent bedsores.  All the while, Bernechea said the woman screamed, "From the sun down, then the whole night and morning-she yells non-stop."

Bernachea said that made it impossible to take any breaks.  Nor did she receive overtime pay for the long hours.

Read the rest, and listen, at KPCC's website »

The past decade has seen a surge of organizing by domestic workers in the United States. These workers, who care for children, senior citizens and disabled people in their homes, are explicitly excluded from many of the basic protections of federal labor law, including union organizing rights. Their job is characterized by low wages, long hours and meager benefits, and it’s among the fastest-growing in the US economy. Last Friday, The Nation sat down with Ai-jen Poo, a founder of New York’s Domestic Workers United, who now directs the National Domestic Workers Alliance. We discussed some disappointments dealt by Democratic politicians, the challenges of sustaining non-union labor groups and how to confront the coming care crisis. What follows is a condensed and edited version of our conversation.

The Nation: What’s happening to work in the United States? Does labor have the tools to grapple with it?

Real-life nannies have never had much in common with Fran Drescher’s “flashy girl from Flushing.” The domestic workforce is overwhelmingly composed of women of color, many of them immigrants. Care workers often labor for long hours under grueling conditions. In many states, they lack even basic workplace protections, a result of their exclusion from collective bargaining under the 1935 National Labor Relations Act.

Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, is out to change much more than labor law. Poo grew up watching her Taiwanese immigrant parents struggle to balance work and family, and she believes that good jobs for domestic workers would also help solve what she calls the nation’s “care crisis.”

WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony Monday afternoon arguing that the H-1B visa program, which covers highly skilled temporary foreign workers, often in high-tech fields, discriminates against women.

The hearing, which was devoted to issues women face in the immigration process, also focused on family reunification, and ways to help families — and women specifically — integrate into the legal immigration system.

“I don’t think we should be setting up an either-or proposition — even the most highly skilled immigrants, they have families, too,” said Senator Mazie Hirono, Democrat of Hawaii, referring to what she described as a false, “either-or” choice between family-based immigration and high-skilled immigration. “This is all about doing the kind of immigration reform that really supports the values we have in this country, and one of the values we have in this country is that family is important.”

The gender-discrimination lawsuit against WalMart, New York's new Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, and other efforts show that Sheryl Sandberg's advice isn't only for the elite.

"Social gains are never handed out," Sheryl Sandberg writes in her new book, Lean In. "They must be seized."

Sandberg's focus is on women in professional and managerial positions, and many writers have criticized her for offering advice that doesn't apply to poor or working-class women. But all women benefit from reflection—and action—on the question she urges each of us to ask: "What would I do if I weren't afraid?"

What helps many women move past fear is not having to act alone. Support from other women in the same situation—and even more, taking action as a group on behalf of all of us as we address the external barriers—gets us on our feet, turning our personal struggles into power.

Across this country, groups of women, many of them in the most precarious and least supportive jobs, are already leaning in because they have been leaning together.