USA -

San Diego - Within the framework of the revision of a new labor contract, domestic workers went to the traditional lavatory of feet, as Jesus did with the Prophets, in correspondence with the celebration of Christian Easter.

One of the most important demands that the employees pertaining to the organization “Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice of San Diego County (ICWJ)”, is regarding the health insurance.

And it was indeed in this special ceremony that took place in the Good Samaritan Episcopal Church, where employees and leaders expressed the demand for a collective treaty of just work.

Magadalena Maganda, mother of three children who suffered from asthma and respiratory diseases, considers unjust that in her work she was refused to have a health insurance.

She emphasized, by the reading of a letter, that being a nurse to her it is difficult to accept the lack of a health insurance that she requires for her children, and this is a demand that doesn't reach only to the domestic workers, but to everybody who dispences with health services.

Moments before the domestic workers took to end the traditional lavatory of feet, representatives of SEIU United Service Workers West (USWW) represented by Lorraine González, recently re-elected secretary-treasurer of San Diego and Imperial Counties Council Work, emphasized the contribution of the workers to the local and regional economy, and demanded that their labor rights are fulfilled.

They emphasize the results of a health study in California

In coincidence, the union of domestic workers affiliated to SEIU-USWW, presented a study: “How Much is the 1% Holding Back your Family?”

In the study realised “as part of its state campaign for a new contract that overcomes in 2012, suggests “a healthier California”, where the people who live in middle-class communities would increase their life expectancy by four more years, and the working-class by five additional years to which they now live.

“What is dramatically clear”, she indicated, “is that the inequality (in the life expectancy) is not a subject of the rich versus poor man but those who live in extreme wealth are burdened with the weight of the others… and this is the beginning to understand why in richer districts the people have shorter lifes”.

“In San Diego, your accomodation determines your health”

This is the suggestive title of a presented statistical picture in the study in which several communities of San Diego according to their level of income and its correlation with the life expectancy enumerate themselves.

The picture locates to the city of Del Mar, with one of the major levels of accomodation and life expectancy, followed by the North of San Diego, Chula Vista, Escondido and the East of San Diego.

She emphasized also, that “the inequality of income has caused a national debate that originated the sprouting of the National Occupy Movement.

The celebration of the paschal tradition was attended by Laurie Coskey, executive director of ICWJ, the religious leaders Reverend Jaime Gates, of Point Loma Nazarene University, and Father Robert Fambrini, of Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church.

In representation of communitarian groupings attended Clare Crawford, executive director for the Center on Policy Initiatives; and the councillors David Alvarez (Eighth District) and Marty Emerald (District 9), as well as congressman Bob Filner.

Read the report in Spanish.