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USA: NDWA said it was shocked as the California Governor vetoed the Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights

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by IDWFED published Oct 02, 2012 12:00 AM
Last night California's Governor Brown vetoed AB889 – the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights. While we knew it was a possibility we were shocked.

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Read the original article in full: A message about the California Domestic Worker Bill of Rights veto | National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA)

Last night California's Governor Brown vetoed AB889 – the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights. While we knew it was a possibility we were shocked.

Tita Boots, an elderly caregiver in Los Angeles, has been at the forefront of this effort, because while she has been supporting a dignified quality of life for the aging in the state of California for many years, she has been living and working in the shadows, without the right to meal and rest breaks, overtime or uninterrupted sleep time when she works as a live-in.

Sylvia Lopez, a domestic worker representative of the California Domestic Workers Coalition said, “It is a huge disappointment that Governor Brown chose not to recognize the people caring for California’s families and homes as real workers. For decades we have tirelessly cared for California’s children, the elderly, and people with disabilities without the protection of basic rights. Tonight, Governor Brown has done a tremendous disservice to thousands of domestic workers, their families, and the people they care for.”

But the truth is, for more than a decade, domestic workers have been organizing in California, building training programs, hiring halls, cooperatives, and support groups across the state. They assert their rights and dignity; and through their organizing, they have improved their own quality of life despite more than 70 years of exclusion from basic labor protections.

And through the campaign to pass AB889, that organizing has reached a new level of impact. Our domestic worker leaders in California have been building membership, engaging press, legislators and local community leaders, and building new coalitions. Guillermina Castellanos, Claudia Reyes, Aquilina SorianoVersoza, Rosamaria Segura and others have led more than 50 mobilizations of thousands of women who sacrificed days of work to journey to Sacramento to tell their stories. They have changed the environment in the capital on our issues forever.

Our new statewide web of relationships between domestic workers and their families, employers, faith communities, unions, and celebrities is unstoppable; it’s built around the dignity of domestic work. Thousands of Californians are touched by the work of domestic workers; thousands more are now inspired by their advocacy and leadership. This movement will only continue to grow.

This campaign to pass AB889 was the second round of a five-year campaign to pass basic labor rights for domestic workers in the Golden State. The first round ended with a veto by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. While we had a different governor this time, this round unfortunately ended similarly. We take this decision as we took the last one – as a call to action to continue to build our movement. It will be stronger than ever before. We will win in California. It’s just a matter of time.

We will win in California, and we will win around the country. This week, our affiliates in Illinois and Massachusetts will be meeting with our leaders in California and New York, to learn from their experiences as they plot out their efforts at the state level.

We believe that great movements create the context for great acts of leadership. We believe that our movement in California created an opportunity for Governor Jerry Brown. We created the opportunity for Governor Brown to help lead the nation towards progress and equality for our growing, vital workforce of women. The one thing we could not control was his choice. He made an unfortunate choice.

And we have made ours. We choose respect, we choose dignity and we choose to keep building our power to transform California and the nation, to care for all of us.

Andrea Cristina Mercado and Ai-jen Poo
On Behalf of the California Domestic Workers Coalition and the National Domestic Workers Alliance

More information:

Source: National Domestic Workers Alliance

Story Type: News

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