“The personal is political” is a second-wave Feminist phrase.  It articulates the concept that the material realities of our lives form our political consciousness and our priorities. Today, young Feminist Women of Color are fighting to transform the economic status of Women and they are succeeding.  Their work has taken the concept that the personal is political to a deeper level.

Driven by an intersectional Feminist lens - meaning a lens that encompasses race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, and age, all the realities that make up a person’s social position -young Feminist Women of Color are building the future of the U.S. Labor Movement.

They are imagining - and implementing - successful alternative organizing strategies for Low-Wage Sectors that are transforming the Labor Movement as a whole.

A key example of this is found in the Domestic Workers’ Movement, a movement of Nannies, Housekeepers and Caregivers - working together to codify basic Labor protections for their historically unregulated sector (For More, Read: In Seattle, Nannies, Cleaners & Home-Caregivers Just Won A Battle That ‘Offers A Glimpse Of A Brighter Future’ For The ‘Embattled’ U.S. Labor Movement).

The National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) is comprised of approximately 53 Workers Center Affiliates throughout the country, including the Chicago Coalition of Household Workers, Mujeres Unidas y Activas in California, and the Brazilian Worker Center in Massachusetts.

Critically, many of these organizations were founded and are led by Women of Color.

Many of these leaders have been Domestic Workers themselves or are the children of Domestic Workers.

Priscilla Gonzalez led the New York-based Domestic Workers United for many years before becoming leader of police reform organization Communities United for Police Reform.  Her activism contributed to Local and state policy victories for Domestic Workers in New York.

Gonzalez’s personal story influences her activism.  Her Ecuadorian mother worked as a Nanny and Housekeeper for a wealthy family on the Upper East Side of New York and experienced poor treatment by her employers.  Despite working long hours, Gonzalez’s mother was not paid overtime.  She was expected to pay out of pocket for the children’s snacks and toys and she’d have to fight to be reimbursed for these expenses.

“Fighting for social justice felt like a natural path to take in my life in terms of what I wanted to spend my time doing.  I wanted to make things right for (my mother) and countless women like her,” Gonzalez told me in 2013 as I wrote my 2014 book: Part of the Family?: Nannies, Housekeepers, Caregivers and the Battle for Domestic Workers’ Rights. 

“Domestic work is the backbone of our society.  Through the Domestic Workers’ Movement we were blazing a trail where there had been none,” she said.

Activists like Gonzalez throughout the United States have worked to achieve key policy victories: Six States have enacted legislation to include Domestic Workers within basic Labor protections such as overtime.  New York led the way in 2010.  Hawaii and California followed in 2013.  Connecticut enacted legislation in 2015. Legislation has also passed in Illinois and efforts are continuing in Oregon as well. 

Policy has transformed at the Federal level too.

In 2013, as a result of advocacy by NDWA Members, the Department of Labor (DOL) issued changes to long-standing Federal restrictions on overtime pay for Domestic Workers.

The impact of this current Feminist Activism is even clearer given the historic exclusion of Women of Color in Labor Movements.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which codified the Minimum Wage, and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which protected Collective Bargaining activity, were both enacted in the 1930s - and both excluded Domestic Workers.

These exclusions are a legacy of slavery: Southern Legislators refused to support these 1930s New Deal Laws unless they did not include Domestic Workers, who in the South, were predominantly Black.

To Continue Reading This Labor News Story, Go To: www.bitchmedia.org/article/feminists-and-labor-movement-hearken