FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, September 01, 2025
CONTACT: Daniela Perez, [email protected]
NEW YORK,NY – On Labor Day, the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) honors the 2.2 million nannies, housecleaners, and home care workers whose labor sustains families and communities across the United States.
This year, domestic workers and the families who depend on them are under extraordinary threat. Congress has slashed nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid through the budget reconciliation bill – cuts that both undermine long-term care and redirect funding into harmful immigration enforcement that directly targets the immigrant care workforce.
At the same time, the Department of Labor has proposed a devastating rollback that would strip agency-based home care workers of minimum wage and overtime protections, undoing one of the few federal labor protections ever won for this workforce. The public comment period for this rule closes on September 2, 2025. NDWA urges the public to make their voices heard and submit comments opposing this harmful rule here.
NDWA released the following statement:
“Today, we are in the midst of a labor crisis – one that deprioritizes working people, families, and care workers while funneling resources to billionaires and harmful immigration efforts that tear families apart. Care work is one of the fastest-growing industries in the country, yet it is under relentless threat. Medicaid is the lifeline for our workforce – domestic workers rely on it for their own health care or their families’, and direct care workers depend on it as the very source of their wages. Slashing Medicaid while attempting to erase wage protections pushes workers and families closer to collapse. And investing those dollars into immigration enforcement adds another layer of fear and danger to the very workforce holding our care system and economy together.
Domestic workers have always been at the heart of the labor movement. From the Atlanta washerwomen to Dorothy Bolden, domestic workers have shown unmatched resilience in the face of exclusion and loss. That history matters now more than ever.
We are at an intersection where our labor rights, our safety, and our health care are all at risk. This Labor Day, we are reminded not just of how much domestic workers bear the brunt of these crises, but of our responsibility to hold leaders accountable and fight for a future where domestic workers are afforded the dignity, wages, and labor protections they deserve.
In June, we celebrated the reintroduction of the Federal Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, a historic step toward codifying long-overdue protections into federal law so that no worker has to worry about their rights shifting across state lines. Our unity is our strength. We will continue to organize domestic workers – who are black women, immigrants, and women of color – and we will keep building power to ensure that the workers who make all other work possible are finally seen, valued, and protected.”
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National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) is the leading voice for dignity and fairness for millions of domestic workers in the United States. Founded in 2007, NDWA works for respect, recognition and inclusion in labor protections for domestic workers, the majority of whom are immigrants and women of color. NDWA is powered by over 70 affiliate organizations and local chapters and by a growing membership base of nannies, house cleaners and care workers in over 20 states. Learn more at www.domesticworkers.org. NDWA is a non-partisan non-profit organization that does not endorse, support, or oppose any candidates for public office.
