Why the Pope’s Domestic Worker Tweet Matters

August 5, 2014 by 2 Comments

Leading domestic worker organizations and thousands of people from around the world praised Pope Francis last week after he tweeted a message of support for domestic workers to his 4.3 million followers. “May we be always more grateful for the help of domestic workers and caregivers; theirs is a precious service,” the tweet read. Since then, at least 5,100 people have shared the message with their followers.

The fact that millions of people could see the pope’s message is reason enough for domestic workers and advocates to be excited about it. It could inspire employers and lawmakers to consider their roles in the treatment of domestic workers. But even more important is what the tweet represents: concern and commitment from a global leader who has a unique ability to raise awareness and influence public opinion – in a way that could lead to policy and culture change. And that’s why the tweet matters.

Views on the papacy and Catholicism aside, Pope Francis undeniably speaks to a large, global audience. There are an estimated 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide, primarily in Latin America and Europe. As Jack Jenkins of the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative argues, “the pope has a built-in listening audience that rivals that of most heads of state… he has the opportunity to push issues into the global spotlight just by mentioning them in his public addresses.” This is significant for a workforce often considered invisible.

The pope’s built-in audience also includes and is magnified by the media. In March, Pew Research Center released the results of an analysis of U.S. media coverage of Pope Francis’ first year and found that he appeared in nearly 50,000 stories in top digital news outlets, ranking fourth most popular among international leaders – behind President Obama, South African leader Nelson Mandela (who died in December) and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The potential for the pope’s global audience and news-making ability to generate support for domestic workers seems obvious, especially among Catholics. But media scholars have also long argued that the media itself has an agenda-setting effect, which means it can make topics more salient for the public and lawmakers simply by covering them. This media effect, combined with the newsworthiness of the papacy, could make the pope’s messages and support of domestic workers even more influential.

The popularity and favorability of Pope Francis (including on Twitter) is also significant. In the United States, for example, two-thirds of the public overall and more than eight in 10 Catholics favor him. He was named TIME’s “Person of the Year” in 2013. And there are some signs that he receives more media coverage than his predecessor did, and that coverage of him spikes when he makes statements about social issues.

In many ways, the pope is also in command of a messaging and public policy influencing machine. As Jenkins notes, popes’ opinions are “typically reflected in the work of the church hierarchy,” in part because they can appoint like-minded bishops that can advocate in a variety of ways. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, for example, engages in public policy debates and endorses legislation. Its support of a federal domestic worker bill of rights or legal protections for domestic workers could generate increased support from lawmakers and the public.

Finally, and importantly, Pope Francis’ concern for domestic workers has been expressed in more ways than this tweet. He made similar comments in a weekly address in June and during a recent interview. The “dignity of labor” has been described as one of his top three social issues. And in 2013, he discussed the challenges surrounding decent work in today’s global economy and the significance of the International Labour Organization’s Domestic Worker Convention with the director general of the agency.

As it turns out, ensuring dignity for domestic workers is personal for Pope Francis. His family employed a domestic worker when he was a child and he admired her greatly, even seeking her out later in life and visiting her the decade before she died. To this day, he says he wears a medallion she gave him as a reminder of her. This strong, personal commitment and his global influence make him an especially powerful ally for the domestic workers’ movement.

There are, of course, limitations to the pope’s ability to inspire widespread policy and culture change. Some people will always disagree with the pope and the church, and his influence is most likely limited to Catholics and Catholic countries. But these limitations do not diminish the overall significance of a pope speaking out about such a critical and global issue.

Last week wasn’t the first time Pope Francis reminded the world of the need to treat domestic workers with dignity and respect, and it won’t be the last. Those 108 characters matter because they just might represent great potential and promise for a sustained papal effort to shed light on the importance of domestic labor and the rights of the tens of millions of women who perform it. Catholic or not, that’s reason to celebrate.

 

(Photo Credit: Twitter / International Domestic Workers Federation)

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Invisible and Isolated No More? Global Domestic Workers and the Age of ICT

July 28, 2014 by 1 Comment

CNN Money recently dubbed the National Domestic Workers Alliance and Studio REV domestic worker app one of “5 apps to help change the world” – calling apps “the newest tactic for tech-savvy activists.” The domestic worker app is part of an education project that began after New York passed the first domestic worker bill of rights in the United States in 2010, and it’s an exciting development to be sure. From providing information to answering common questions and collecting important data, it is certainly a useful tool for workers, organizers and researchers.

But where does the app and information and communications technology (ICT) like it fit within the broader – and global – effort to empower domestic workers and ensure the legal and cultural changes necessary to ensure this essential work is valued? Do tech-savvy tactics really have the potential to “change the world,” particularly when it comes to domestic work?

Numerous historical accounts, ethnographies and analyses of domestic workers worldwide have well documented that domestic workers are often made invisible through laws and state policies, through economic pressures that reduce them to exports, through the denial of their identities – both cultural or ethnic and human – and through employer control of their bodies. They are similarly isolated through legal barriers and the denial of full citizenship, but also through physical separation within communities, countries, and on a global scale. They often experience extreme social exclusion due to race, class, and employer-based control of information, mobility, and nearly every aspect of their lives.

On both of these fronts – invisibility and isolation – ICT seems to have great potential to expose the private sphere of domestic work, helping workers to identify each other and be made visible to governments, NGOs, the public and more. Imagine something as seemingly simple yet powerful as a crowdsourced map that tracks the presence of domestic workers and serves as a way for them to say “Here I am!” to other workers and/or their embassies. ICT could help to identify and track human rights and labor violations. Here again, a map of good and bad employers would be a powerful resource that could lead to legal action and increased accountability.

ICT also has the potential to reduce the isolation of domestic workers by breaking down barriers between them, their fellow workers, their families and their host countries through the creation of virtual networks. Collectives are often seen as a way to improve labor conditions, but why must spaces where people can meet and exchange views exist physically? Through ICT, people can connect and share experiences, find commonality and coordinate no matter where they are.

There is also inherent value and power in the sharing of information. For domestic workers, this could include news, knowledge of the world outside the home in which they work, relevant labor laws, wage rates, information on support groups, and other resources. The National Domestic Workers Alliance and Studio REV app seems to do this well for workers in the United States, as new state-based protections have created the need for educational materials.

The app also gets at one of the more exciting aspects of ICT: the potential for new forms of organizing and resistance. Many scholars who have spent time with domestic workers emphasize that they already have the will to engage and mobilize to make changes in their lives. To the extent that mobile phones and ICT can make collective action, demonstrations or protests easier to coordinate, they would be – and already have been – transformative. The potential power of turning the virtual into the physical cannot be overstated.

Of course, there are significant barriers to the use of ICT for domestic workers. And that’s where advocates and researchers cannot fall into the trap of some ICT-based campaigns. With the rapid rise of mobile telephony and ICT, many scholars and development practitioners have sought ways of leveraging the technology to generate behavior and social change. “Mobile 4 development” (M4D) and “Information and Communication Technologies for Development” (ICT4D) campaigns range in focus from health to the environment, disaster relief, electoral participation, sanitation and financial services.

But as enthusiasm for these campaigns has grown, so has awareness of the fact that data on their effectiveness is sparse. Possible reasons for the mismatch between reality and high expectations include limited access to a technology among a specific population, a lack of knowledge about how a community uses it and/or problems with connectivity. It seems there is much work to do to better evaluate these efforts, bring them to scale and make them sustainable.

And this is why it’s worth emphasizing that the rush to conclude that ICT can change the world is worthy of careful consideration, especially when it comes to domestic work. The ability of ICT to transform the lives, laws and practices surrounding this exploited workforce rests almost entirely on workers’ access to mobile phones and other technology. And, in some countries and homes, that is no small hurdle. Domestic workers are routinely subject to strict employer control of nearly every aspect of their lives, including their mobility and the information and technology they can access.

So, ICT may not be the end-all-be-all when it comes to addressing the global mistreatment of domestic workers. But when used carefully and with an awareness of the community or country involved, it does have the potential to challenge the invisibility and isolation of an essential workforce. In the case of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and Studio REV app, if the technology helps spread important information and creates a sense of community among domestic workers in the United States, it may not “change the world,” but it is a win for some – and an important learning opportunity for others.

 

(Image Credit: CNN Money)

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Considering that domestic work is mainly carried out by women and girls

July 2, 2014 by 6 Comments

Five men on the US Supreme Court decided this week that women workers [a] aren’t really workers and [b] don’t really work. Therefore, women workers don’t deserve the protections, and the power, that a trade union can confer on its members. Many have written on this decision, and many more will. Much of the response has avoided that frontal attack on women workers, preferring instead to focus on labor unions or on household workers. Although the majority opinion doesn’t specify women, it’s clear that the workers under attack are women.

On June 16, 2011, the International Labor Organization recognized as much, when it passed the Convention Concerning Decent Work for Domestic Workers. The Convention defines domestic work as “work performed in or for a household or households”, and defines domestic worker as “any person engaged in domestic work within an employment relationship.” The ILO was careful to note that its Convention applies to all domestic workers.

But before the ILO launched into the nuts and bolts of decent work for domestic workers, it set the global table, specifying the place of domestic work in the global economy and the place of women and girls in domestic work. In other words, the International Labor Organization recognized and considered women as the key.

And so, without further ado and as an alternative to the narrow, misogynistic world view of the U.S. Supreme Court, here’s a sampling of the opening of the Text of the Convention Concerning Decent Work for Domestic Workers:

“Recognizing the significant contribution of domestic workers to the global economy, which includes increasing paid job opportunities for women and men workers with family responsibilities, greater scope for caring for ageing populations, children and persons with a disability, and substantial income transfers within and between countries, and

“Considering that domestic work continues to be undervalued and invisible and is mainly carried out by women and girls, many of whom are migrants or members of disadvantaged communities and who are particularly vulnerable to discrimination in respect of conditions of employment and of work, and to other abuses of human rights, and

“Considering also that in developing countries with historically scarce opportunities for formal employment, domestic workers constitute a significant proportion of the national workforce and remain among the most marginalized, ….

“Recognizing the special conditions under which domestic work is carried out that make it desirable to supplement the general standards with standards specific to domestic workers so as to enable them to enjoy their rights fully, and ….

“Having decided upon the adoption of certain proposals concerning decent work for domestic workers, which is the fourth item on the agenda of the session, and

“Having determined that these proposals shall take the form of an international Convention;

“adopts this sixteenth day of June of the year two thousand and eleven the following Convention, which may be cited as the Domestic Workers Convention, 2011.”

(Photo Credit: UN Human Rights)

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Lede: Two million women workers … ¡presenté!

September 18, 2013 by 8 Comments

Alpha Manzueta

Good news: “The Obama administration announced yesterday it will extend labor benefits and overtime pay to health care workers providing home care. This ruling affects nearly 2 million health care workers, who daily manage the needs of elderly and chronically ill people, as well as people with disabilities. One of the fastest-growing professions in the U.S., these workers have been exempt from benefits provided by the Fair Labor Standards Act since 1974.”

Bad, and unsurprising, news: 41% of women in the United States are poor or verging on poverty. The poverty rate among women is at the highest it’s been in twenty years. For Black and Latina women, almost one in four is `living in poverty’. From non-profit to corporate America, from not-for-profit sea to shining corporate capital C, women are paid less for the same or equivalent work, are promoted less often and less rapidly, and generally are positioned for hard times and slow death. Women workers won’t come anywhere near pay equity until, say, 2058. In other words, most women workers will not see any kind of gender equity or equality in their working lives.

Two-thirds of caregivers are women. Across the land, daughters are the caregivers to family elders: “It’s almost like being back at the turn of the century.” There’s no almost about it, and there’s no `back at’, because there hasn’t been progress. When it comes to care work, we live at the turn of the twentieth century.

When it comes to the description of care work, as well, we live at the turn of the twentieth century. Consider these examples from the past day’s news.

Alpha Manzueta is a full-time worker and single mother who lives with her daughter in a homeless shelter in New York. You know who lives in homeless shelters in New York City? The working poor. And you know who the working poor are: “Mostly female, they are engaged in a variety of low-wage jobs as security guards, bank tellers, sales clerks, computer instructors, home health aides and office support staff members. At work they present an image of adult responsibility, while in the shelter they must obey curfews and show evidence that they are actively looking for housing and saving part of their paycheck.”

Mostly female. A sidebar more or less buried in the fourth paragraph.

And who are the home care workers who will benefit from yesterday’s important decision to extend workers’ hard earned rights? “Mostly female” and almost never in the opening paragraph.

“Home care workers, like domestic workers worldwide, are mostly female, and many of them are immigrants and women of color.” Fourth paragraph.

“More than 90 percent of home care aides are women. About 30 percent are black, and 12 percent are Hispanic.” Ninth paragraph.

“President Barack Obama first proposed the rules nearly two years ago as part of broader effort to boost the economy and help low-income workers struggling to make ends meet. More than 90 percent of home care aides are women. About 30 percent are black, and 12 percent are Hispanic.” Seventh paragraph.

“The federal government estimates that 90 percent of home health workers are female and that 50 percent are minorities. As the population ages, the home health industry is expected to grow rapidly, expanding by 69 percent between 2010 and 2020.” Sixth, and final, paragraph.

“According to the Obama administration, almost 40 percent of aides receive government benefits like food stamps and Medicaid. Ninety-two percent of these workers are female, almost 30 percent are black and 12 percent are Hispanic.” Seventh paragraph.

Bloomberg Business Week actually began their report with the women: “Overturning a decades-old exemption, the U.S. Department of Labor has extended minimum wage and overtime benefits to the mostly female and minority workforce of nearly 2 million home health-care workers.”

Meanwhile, The San Francisco Bay Guardian reported yesterday, “The California Legislature gave final approval to the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights on Sept. 12, legislation sponsored by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-SF) to finally extend some labor rights to this largely female and immigrant workforce. Advocates are hopeful that Gov. Jerry Brown will sign it this time.”

Women workers. Women of color workers. Immigrant women workers. That’s the news. Put it in the lede. Two million women workers … ¡presenté!

 

(Photo Credit: Michael Nagle for The New York Times)

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From “Mammy” to Stay-at-Home Mom

August 21, 2013 by 5 Comments
Eugene and Helene Allen with their son, Charles, in 1948

Eugene and Helene Allen with their son, Charles, in 1948

What caught my attention in Lee Daniels’ “The Butler” was not the character Cecil Gaines, played by Forest Whitaker, but rather his wife, Gloria, portrayed by Oprah Winfrey. In addition to the representation of a White House butler, the film depicts an African American wife and mother whose husband’s gainful employment allows her to remain home and rear the couple’s two sons: an anomaly in the portrayal of black women in the history of Hollywood movies. Many persons with whom I discussed the film overlook this fact. At the same time, this depiction of a black woman conjures up a salient and often contested aspect of black women’s history in the U.S. That is, there was, and continues to be, a cadre of stay-at-home black wives and mothers rearing their children, taking care of their husbands and partners, and being active in their communities and churches.

So while the film unveiled the life of the character Cecil Gaines, I was more intrigued by the development of his wife, Gloria, because too many Hollywood films continue to portray African American women as caricatures, mammies, and jezebels or some semblance of all three. I watched the Gloria character intently despite my ongoing disappointment with the inability of Oprah to produce a film that allows me a glimpse into the black life that rings true to my experience and my reservations about her acting (Am I the only person not enthralled by Oprah’s acting?).

As a former maid, Gloria recognizes how coveted the position is that her husband has landed at the White House. She reminds her neighbors “the White House called him” stressing the level at which Cecil has mastered the skill of being in a room without being noticed, anticipating a person’s needs, and speaking only when being spoken to: the criteria for being an excellent butler. Gloria’s elation soon gives way to anger and loneliness, which she attempts to mitigate with drinking and possibly an affair with a neighbor, as she loses her husband to his job.

Despite the film’s pat domestic ending, allowing viewers to depart the theater with the delusion that some progress has been made in race relations in the United States and in the representation of African Americans in Hollywood films, the film nonetheless stirs up complicated questions about wage disparity versus job security, generational alliances versus intergenerational conflicts, and the sacrifice of self and family for inclusion within the status quo and an opportunity to sit at the table.  But what is more important to me is that Lee Daniels’ “The Butler” shatters a poignant stereotype of the black woman as mammy only to re-inscribe the black man as stepin fetchit, holding Cecil Gaines fast within a frame that keeps him passive, self-sacrificing, and more in love with the first families and their children than he is with his own son.

Despite the lecture about the potential subversiveness of the black domestic given by Dr. King in the film to a group of Freedom Riders, one of whom is Cecil Gaines’ son, I still await the day when filmmakers, other than Spike Lee, will produce a film with characters who resemble some of the black people whom I have known in my life, those persons who have truly been subversive and paid the price for their resistance.

 

(Photo Credit: History vs. Hollywood)

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For women workers, it’s time to change the song

June 9, 2013 by 19 Comments

Reading the names of missing women

Across Turkey, women are at the forefront of the demonstrations. And not only women. Feminists: “At first groups of students chanted: `We are the soldiers of Ataturk’; this died out after feminist protesters objected to its militaristic overtones.”

From the first eruption through today, the Turkish movement has been a giant popular feminist education site, and one that includes sex workers: “`We used to sing ‘Erdogan is the son of a whore’. But when the police teargassed us, one of the brothels on Taksim Square opened its doors, and the women gave us shelter and treated us with lemons. We don’t sing that any more.’”

The solidarity of sex workers taught demonstrators that sex workers are workers, sisters, and women. Sex workers are not epithets or metaphors, and they are not criminals. They are part of the working mass, and they can represent themselves.

In the past week, sex worker organizations have taught exactly the same lesson to workers, social movements, and the State, around the world.

Across Canada this weekend, sex workers and supporters demonstrated, under the Red Umbrella, for legalization of sex work and for sex workers’ rights as workers, women, and women workers. This week, Canada’s Supreme Court will finally hear a challenge by Terri-Jean Bedford, Valerie Scott and Amy Lebovitch to the constitutionality of the laws concerning sex work.

Former and current sex workers have argued that criminalization makes sex workers more vulnerable, forces them further underground, further isolates them, and impedes access to public and social services. It’s a hard life, and the laws only make it harder, sometimes fatally so: “When Kerry Porth remembers her life as a sex worker in Vancouver, she can’t help but wonder how she survived when so many other prostitutes died a gruesome death at the hands of notorious serial killer Robert Pickton. `They were women just like me. Looking back, realizing just how much risk I was at, it was a real eye-opener.’”

In Kenya, sex workers in Laikipia District have organized a group called the Laikipia Peer Educators. They want formal recognition. They want the protection that formal recognition might provide, and they want the citizenship, the opportunity to participate and contribute to the common good in the same manner as every other worker. They want to trade in stigma for taxes.

In Australia, the Scarlet Alliance, representing Australian sex workers, lobbied to have foreign sex workers included among the skilled work visas. Sex work is legal across Australia, to varying degrees, but it’s not considered “skilled labor” by the State, at least not yet. Massage therapists, gardeners, florists, cooks, dog handlers, fashion designers, bed and breakfast operators, entertainers, dancers, recreation officers, makeup artists, jockeys, gymnastic coaches and horse riding instructors are considered skilled labor, but not sex work.

This is about work that is not called work, workers who are not called workers, and women who are told they cannot represent themselves. This concerns sex workers, as it concerns domestic workers in the United States. Both Hawaii and California seem to be on the verge of implementing or of passing respective Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. All workers are workers. Period.

Feminist political economists have argued for decades that women’s work is work, whether it’s waged or not, whether it’s called work or not. Women workers have known this and have organized for centuries for recognition, dignity, autonomy, rights and power.

From the social movements in Turkey to the courthouse in Canada to the District government in Kenya to the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship to the state houses across the United States, it’s time. It’s time to recognize women’s work, all work, as work, and to recognize all workers as workers. It’s time to change the song.

 

(Photo Credit: Rabble.ca / Murray Bush / Flux)

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Domestic workers are women workers are workers. Period.

January 9, 2013 by 2 Comments

The International Labour Organization released a major study today, Domestic workers across the world: Global and regional statistics and the extent of legal protection. Though the report’s picture is largely what one might expect, it’s still worth engaging.

In 2010, at least 53 million women and men worked as domestic workers, up 19 million from the last count of 33.2 million people, in 1995. That’s almost a 60% increase in the size of the global domestic labor force. And remember, the numbers are always lowballed, so that the ILO suggest there could be as many as 100 million domestic workers.

Globally, universally, everywhere, domestic workers are overwhelmingly women. Which women might change from place to place, but they’re always women. Globally, 83% of domestic workers are women. Globally, 1 in every 13 women wage earners, or 7.5%, is a domestic worker. In Latin America, 26.6% of women workers are domestic workers. In the Middle East, 31.8% of women workers are domestic workers.

In the United States, 95% of domestic workers are women, of whom 54% are women of color. Latinas make up the largest group among the women of color domestic workers.

This means the status and state of domestic workers is part and parcel of the pursuit of gender equality. Addressing the inequities of domestic workers’ lives and situations is key to women’s emancipation … everywhere.

The United States gets something of a free pass in the report, but it shouldn’t. Here’s why. The report focuses on three areas of major concern: working time; minimum wages and in-kind payments; and maternity protection. Paid annual leave falls under the category of working time, and guess what? Of the 117 countries in the report, the United States is one of only three countries without a universal statutory minimum for paid annual leave. The other two are India and Pakistan.

When it comes to coverage of domestic workers’ control over their time, the United States is the only so-called developed country and the only country in the Americas that excludes live-in domestic workers from overtime protections.

The picture is worse when we turn to maternity leave. Among so-called developed countries, only the United States, Japan, and South Korea have no entitlement to maternity leave for domestic workers and no entitlement to maternity cash benefits. In the Americas, the United States is the only country that has neither maternity leave nor maternity cash benefits for domestic workers.

At the beginning of the 20th century, women were described as “being forced to become servants”. A hundred years later, they are described as “preferred by employers.” That’s the march of neoliberal progress. You weren’t forced; you were preferred. Otherwise, it’s been a century of exclusion of domestic workers from protective labor legislation.

It’s time to end that century. Domestic workers are under attack. They’re under attack because they are women. End the exclusion of domestic workers from national labor laws. Domestic workers are women workers are workers. Period.

 

(Photo Credit: ACelebrationofWomen.org)

 

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Domestics: For Children of Filipino Transnational Families, Classification as Control

December 19, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Geraldine Pratt’s recent work with Filipina domestic workers in Canada examines the narratives of ambitious mothers who travel overseas to take care of others’ children in order to provide for their own. Once their children are able to reunite with them in Canada, mothers cite issues of deskilling, where they “lose their skills during the years that they work as caregivers,” limiting them to caretaking jobs and unable to further develop their human capital. Furthermore, Pratt reports that these mothers usually spend an average of eight to twelve years engaged in domestic work overseas and separated from their families before reunification.

As a former educator, I taught in a rural high school in Hawaii, where we had a high Filipino student population whose parents and/or grandparents were immigrants. Many of my students’ family members had limited English speaking ability. When calling home, older sibling often translated my messages for me. We also saw low attendance for parent-teacher conferences. However, when mothers did attend these conferences, they shared their frustrations at being unable to help their children with schoolwork, emphasizing their hopes that their hard work would enable their children to gain “a better life.”

My experience with immigrant Filipino families as an educator prompted me to investigate the education for Filipino American students from transnational families. However, I must stress that Filipino students were also among my best students. It is important to remember that stereotyping all Filipino students according to ethnicity is more dangerous than excluding these narratives. We must look at all contributing factors, such as family education and class in host country, discrimination, and generation.

Despite popular depictions of Filipino migrants as working in highly skilled professions, the US continues to recruit domestic and home care workers. Among Filipino domestic and home care workers: 80% are women, the median age is 44, 60% hold US citizenship, the median annual income was $17,050 in 2005, 1/3 have at least a college-level degree and another 30% attended college without completion, and 3% have graduate and post-BA level degrees. Filipino women are disproportionately represented among domestic workers, and, contrary to prevailing views of Filipinos in the US, a majority of Filipino domestic workers are neither highly educated nor have much opportunity to leave domestic work to enter other skilled professions. The median annual income is just below the federal poverty line. With only 60% of domestic workers reporting citizenship status, some Filipino domestic workers lack access to most social services.

I wrote to Geraldine Pratt on the topic of classifying Filipinos and the use of “Asian/Pacific Islander.” Pratt responded:

“I think in Canada there is a tendency not to lump Filipino youths with other Asian-Canadian youths, because the migration of Filipinos to Canada has been so particular.”

For example, consider how the Canadian and the US census approach the question of race and ethnicity. The Canadian census uses an open-ended question, along with examples and guidelines, which requires respondents to write in their race/ethnicity. The US census requires respondents to check off one or more race/ethnicity box (where Filipinos would fall under “Asian”) and allows respondents to specify their subgroup. Since respondents are not required to specify their subgroup, the US Census Bureau is continuously working on better ways to track race/ethnicity. At the same time, Canadian research tends to give more attention to Filipino academic achievement while research focused on Filipino Americans generally still include Filipino Americans in the pan-ethnic group of “Asians.”

As Michel Foucault suggested, the classification of individuals drives governmental strategies of control. By inventing all-encompassing pan-ethnic terms, which represent group otherness rather than group needs, the counting of certain “kinds of people” informs state allocation of resources and penalties. The state’s power to name a people translates into a power over people’s daily lives. When I report my ethnicity, which box(es) am I allowed to check off, how is it packaged and interpreted in study results, and later, how does someone else’s interpretation of my identity continue to mold my everyday identity and life chances, and consequently, manipulate my identity further through defining my race/ethnicity?

In Pratt’s study, Filipino domestic workers are “sacrificed for the vitality of the Canadian population”, and Canadian families “prosper” while Filipino domestic workers labor and live under conditions “unacceptable to national citizens.” Following Foucault’s critique of the state, state racism and discrimination against certain “inferiorized races” serves a “murderous function” in order to regenerate the general population. In this way, the state “saves” by denying care to domestic workers and their families, but the state also “gains” when domestic workers provide privatized services, such as health care and child care, which the state normally provides its citizens. The state denies transnational domestic workers’ full citizenship rights in order to sustain citizenship rights for others without actually investing in those services.

Though there are issues with the education system and its reinforcement of capitalist ideals and hierarchies of power, a lack of support for Filipino students from transnational families could prove to be more detrimental. When we assume that all Filipino or all Asian students are successful and fail to recognize specific needs, we allow false assumptions to further deny students their rights. For Filipino children of transnational families, lower academic performance and higher dropout rates perpetuate their place among low-waged workers. Filipino Canadian youth struggle to exceed their parents’ educational levels and work almost exclusively in certain service professions. More academic support and guidance can help Filipino American youth from transnational backgrounds overcome these statistics and use education as a tool to achieve the social mobility which originally prompted their parents to become transnational domestic workers.

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Domestics: Tell Governor Brown Domestic Workers Are Workers

October 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Hundreds of thousands of domestic workers will remain unprotected by state law while at work following Governor Jerry Brown’s veto of AB889. While Brown acknowledged they were doing “noble work”, he felt there were “too many unanswered questions” about the bill’s contents. A fair portion of his questions expressed concern for the employer, not the domestic worker.

The measure would have provided meal breaks, overtime pay, and rest periods during long shifts. Opponents of AB889, such as the California Chamber of Commerce, argued that allowing domestic workers to have such provisions would be “impractical at best and dangerous at worst.”

Cost effectiveness is something that should be considered in the course of any measure, but not at the expense of workers’ safety. This sort of logic is not tolerated at other levels of business. Domestic work should be no exception. There is a tendency to overlook the importance of domestic workers and to ignore the fact that they are indeed workers. Working in an environment previously deemed the private sphere is no justification for denying over 200,000 individuals their rights.

Their place within the home and their performance of duties that are not traditionally viewed as the task of a non-family member have somehow earned them a place below that of other working class individuals. Brown claimed that domestic work is a “noble endeavor”. If that’s so, why doesn’t it warrant the protections granted to all other occupations of similar status and pay?

Additionally, a large percentage of domestic workers in California are female immigrants. Advocates of this legislation have explained that the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights would provide them with some sorely needed protections. By vetoing this bill, Governor Brown has denied domestic workers their civil rights and forced them to face unsafe working conditions with no means of recourse.

(Image Credit: California Domestic Workers Coalition)

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Domestics: Who’s Burdening Whom?

October 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Following Governor Jerry Brown’s veto of the California Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights (AB 889), the California Chamber of Commerce expressed support for Brown’s decision and claimed that the bill would have placed a “burden onto working families who are struggling.” Apparently the California Chamber of Commerce does not view sexual harassment, underpayment and  70 hour work weeks – just three of the countless unjust labor standards faced by domestic workers – to be burdensome.

What’s even more alarming than the California Chamber of Commerce’s ignorance is the fact that Brown is on their side. Brown asked, “What would be the additional costs [to the employers of domestic workers]?” But whose cost is greatest here? While the price of nannies, care takers and housekeepers may increase for employers, the cost of not having basic labor protections is surely a greater issue.

Although the business community in California considered AB 889 to be ‘radical’ in its demands, in reality, the bill would have simply extended the rights granted to the rest of the labor workforce to domestic workers. What is ‘radical,’ however, is denying the 200,000 domestic workers in California the same labor protections granted to almost every other manual laborer since the New Deal. As Caitlin Vega, a legislative advocate with the California Labor Federation, stated, “We’re not creating new rights that no one has ever heard of.”

Sylvia Lopez, a worker with the California Domestic Workers Coalition stated, “For decades we have tirelessly cared for California’s homes, children, the elderly and people with disabilities with the protection of basic rights.” Even Brown referred to the work done by domestic workers to be a “noble endeavor.” But until California grants basic labor protections to its domestic workers, a burden will continue to lie on these hard workers and their families.

Michael Smith, michaelsmith093@gmail.com

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