May 20, 2021 • 44 mins
Racism, exclusion, and unchecked corporate growth have trapped an entire class of people in poverty, no matter how hard they work. We call them the “working poor.” This week, workers’ rights advocate Ai-jen Poo shows Baratunde how it’s possible to work several jobs and still struggle to make ends meet — and how domestic workers are fighting for a future where all workers receive the dignity and fairness they deserve.
Guest: Ai-jen Poo - Co-Founder and Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance
Twitter: @aijenpoo
Bio: Ai-jen Poo is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, a non-profit organization working to bring quality work, dignity, and fairness to the growing numbers of workers who care and clean in our homes, the majority of whom are immigrants and women of color.
SHOW NOTES + LINKS
Go to howtocitizen.com to sign up for show news, AND to start your How to Citizen Practice.
Please show your support for the show in the form of a review and rating. It makes a huge difference with the algorithmic overlords!
We are grateful to Ai-jen Poo for joining us! Follow her at @aijenpoo on Twitter, or find more of her work at domesticworkers.org.
ACTIONS
PERSONALLY REFLECT
Who’s cared for you?
Think about someone in your life who's cared for you. Think about the value of that relationship. It could be a family member, a neighbor, a childcare provider, or some other caregiver in your life. What role did they play in your life? Bonus points: Give them a shout out, call them, and just let them know that you appreciate them.
BECOME INFORMED
Be an Ethical Employer, even at home.
The National Domestic Workers Alliance’s sister organization, Hand in Hand, offers support to employers of domestic workers (housekeepers, nannies, care givers). Also, their new app Alia allows you to provide insurance and time-off for people you employ in your home. Check out the resources on their website, domesticemployers.org, to learn how you can ethically employ someone in your home.
PUBLICLY PARTICIPATE
Benefits for all, no matter the job.
New platforms are working to address the need for portable benefits. Two that we found promising are: Opolis, a new membership-owned digital employment platform, and the Portable Benefit Network, another new platform focused on attaching healthcare to the worker no matter their job. Share these options with others in your network, so many more people can vote with their dollars and push for portable benefits as a part of a more equitable working future.
Support the National Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.
After winning Domestic Workers Bills of Rights in nine states and two cities, the National Domestic Workers Alliance is leading an effort to pass a National Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. Follow the link below to add your name in support! https://actionnetwork.org/forms/domestic-workers-make-all-other-work-possible
If you take any of these actions, share that with us - action@howtocitizen.com. Mention Working 5 to 9 in the subject line. And share about your citizening on social media using #howtocitizen.
Visit the show's homepage - www.howtocitizen.com - to sign up for news about the show, to learn about upcoming guests, live tapings, and more for your citizen journey.
Also sign up for Baratunde's weekly Recommentunde Newsletter and follow him on Instagram or join his Patreon. You can even text him, like right now at 202-894-8844.
CREDITS
How To Citizen with Baratunde is a production of iHeartRadio Podcasts and Dustlight Productions. Our Executive Producers are Baratunde Thurston, Elizabeth Stewart and Misha Euceph. Stephanie Cohn is
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, I'm barratone day Thurston and this is how to
citizen with Barratton. When I was about seven years old,
I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.
My classmates were like astronaut, doctor, Not this guy. This
(00:24):
guy was like garbage man. Yes, because, oh my goodness,
all the reasons that truck. I would hear the truck
coming up the block and race to the front porch
to see the coolest dudes that ever lived hanging off
the back of the truck as it rolled up the street.
A street it shouldn't have been able to fit up,
(00:45):
but because the driver was so good skills, I'm talking skills,
they could navigate any urban environment. And you're looking so
cool hanging off the back of that truck. And they
leap off the truck and they pick up the trash,
and I'm like, this is a when when I don't
even I can't even count the amount of winds there
are in that job. You're gonna pay me money to
(01:06):
let me look cool, pick up trash and get free stuff. Yes.
And if the garbage man life wasn't for me, my
fall back dream job was gardener. Yeah, little garden Bartun Day.
I was a member of a community garden. I grew
food for my family. I'm trying to provide for my family.
(01:28):
It was so much fun. And I guess the threat
is I like getting my hands dirty. I just I
wanted money for dirty. That was the calculus of young
Baritone Day. And there are millions of Americans who have
worked getting their hands dirty for all of us, in
jobs that many of us can't or don't want to do.
(01:51):
But the difference between the early nineteen eighties when I
had these dreams and now is that so many of
these people don't make nearly enough, don't have the protections
they need to take care of themselves and their families.
You've heard me say this before, but it's hard to
citizen when you can't pay the bills and wealth inequality
(02:11):
in this country is making it hard for increasing numbers
of people to do just that. Now that inequality was
baked in from the start through racism and exclusion. Then
you add unchecked corporate growth on top of that, concentrating
economic power in the hands of the few and not
the many. As a result, we've got a whole class
(02:32):
of people who are trapped in poverty, perpetual insecurity, no
matter how much or how hard they work. We call
them the working poor. The system is designed to keep
them poor. And that same system encourages us to always
think of ourselves as individuals, which is convenient for the
(02:55):
status quo because it's overwhelming to think of yourself as
a worker versus an entire corporation, or as a citizen
versus the whole system. But when we think together, when
we come together, we can change these outcomes. There is
a better way. This is how to citizen y'all. And
(03:15):
we're not gonna leave you hanging on the problem and
wallowing that note. We're gonna point toward those solutions. Now
I knew who we had to talk to on this topic.
I sat down with someone who's organizing with one of
the most historically discriminated groups of workers in our nation's history.
Today's guest is I Gen Poop. She's been helping domestic
(03:38):
workers lead a charge for fairness, the fairness all workers needs,
so they can live with security, live with dignity, so
they can show up for themselves, for their families, their communities,
and all of us. We have to take every bit
of power, every relationship, every ounce of hope and determination
(03:59):
that we have of to win big for our communities
right now, and I think domestic workers are ready. We
meet Eigen after the brain Let's start with you introducing yourself.
(04:29):
Say your name and what you do. My name is
I Gen Poo, and I work for the National Domestic
Workers Alliance, which is an organization that works with nanny's
housekeepers and home care workers to build our power and
to win dignity, respect, and fairness. Mm hmm, dignity, respect,
(04:55):
those are all great things. I co signed. Where do
I sign up? When you were growing going up, what
did you want to be? I actually wanted to be
a writer, um, because I'm actually kind of an introvert.
And then as I got older, I started working with Clay,
and my pottery teacher became one of my best friends
(05:18):
and mentors, and the ceramics studio became kind of a
refuge for me. So then I thought maybe I should
be a potter until I ended up in New York
City and in the world of organizing and activism. So
you're shaping Clay. Take the leap with me from shaping
(05:39):
Clay to shaping the world. What's the jump into activism?
Where did that first show up in your life? Well,
I think it was because I was raised by my
mom and my grandma and um, and they're just such strong,
powerful women who did so much, like really moved of
(06:00):
mountains every day, and I just thought they walked on
water and could do anything. And you know, I saw
women doing that in the community, and I think I
just assumed that if they were powering everything, that they
would be in charge of everything, actually in power, and um,
you know, very quickly you realize that that's not the case.
(06:21):
And in fact, so much of what women do to
power our world is not visible or certainly not valued,
often not protected. And so I think I just was
always drawn towards women's issues, women's organizations. I became a
women's studies major in college and got involved in the
(06:43):
New York Asian Women's Center when I moved to New York,
and I was kind of a journey from there. Do
you remember a formative experience that first got you interested
in workers rights? Yes, I think it happened in stages. Um.
I would is volunteering for the hotline at the New
York Asian Women's Center, and it's a domestic violence shelter
(07:06):
for Asian immigrant women, and because my grandparents played such
a role in raising me, I spoke Mandarin, albeit twelve
year old Mandarin, but I did, and so I volunteered
on the bilingual hotline and survivors UM would call and
they would talk about their experiences of violence and abuse,
(07:29):
but they would also talk about just how hard it
was to survive doing the work that they did, and
feeling like they just didn't have real choices to take
care of themselves and keep themselves and their families safe
because they worked in jobs that didn't pay the bills,
where they couldn't put food on the table and keep
(07:51):
a roof over their heads and the lights on for
their families. And I also was volunteering at an organization
called the Committee Against Anti Asian Violence, which is also
now called CALV organizing Asian Communities. And at the time
there were a group of us who We're seeing the
women in the Asian immigrant community working in these low
(08:14):
wage jobs, restaurant work, um nail salon work, domestic work,
and seeing just how impossible it was to make a
living doing these jobs. So we started organizing healthfares and
know your rights events just to see if there was
(08:35):
interest on the part of women um in these jobs
to organize to come together. And it was always the
domestic workers who would come to the meetings and really
understood how valuable and powerful it is to break out
of the isolation of your day to day life and
joined together with others. And they really seem like they
(08:58):
understood the potential of organizing, and so we just really
continued to work with At the time, it was Filipina
domestic workers organizing bringing people together, and a number of them,
before they had come to New York, had worked in
Hong Kong, where there's really like a powerful domestic workers
(09:19):
movement that has been built there over many many years,
and they had a standard contract and clear rights and protections.
And so the Filipinas who worked in Hong Kong before
coming to New York were shocked when they came to
New York to find that in the United States, which
is supposed to be kind of a bastion of freedom globally,
(09:42):
that they had less rights and less protections and less standards.
And they immediately said, you know, we need to organize
with our sisters from all different communities, especially Caribbean women
who were the majority of domestic workers in New York
UM at the time, and and every an he needs
to come together so that we can have standards and
(10:03):
protections and rights. And that in many ways was the
beginnings of the domestic workers movement generation that I was
a part of a New York city and our national
movement which has now grown. We're in all fifty states now.
We have seventy five local affiliates and chapters all over
(10:25):
the country and a community of about two hundred and
eighty thousand domestic workers and UM and we're building every day.
Two hundred eighty thousand. That's an army right there. So
you speak of standards, rights privileges for domestic workers, what
(10:48):
are those like? What does the domestic worker need or
what was missing that other workers have that you noticed
domestic workers didn't have. There's a really deep history here
the not a lot of people know, which is that. Well,
if we think about it, it kind of makes sense
because the work that domestic workers do has always been
(11:08):
associated with work that women do, write, caregiving, cleaning, and
it's been really kind of taken for granted in our
culture that women will just do that work on top
of everything else. As a profession, it's always been associated
with women of color. Many of our first domestic workers
were enslaved African women, and then ever since then, it's
(11:31):
always been black, brown Asian Native women doing this work.
Immigrant women. It's the part of our workforce with the
largest concentration of undocumented immigrants of any industry. UM. But
that history of racism, UM, and the legacy of slavery
(11:52):
has so profoundly shaped our workforce from day one, UM.
And the kind of signature moment of this was in
the nineteen thirties when Congress was discussing the New Deal
labor laws, the labor laws that would be the foundation
of our countries rights for workers. Southern di secrats refused
(12:16):
to support those bills if they included farm workers and
domestic workers. Southern member of Congress essentially UM. And that exclusion,
explicit exclusion of domestic workers from those labor laws really
set the tone for how this workforce would be treated
(12:39):
and how it would always be treated as less than
real work. UM. And so so many laws exclude domestic
workers at the federal level. And what we've tried to
do is state by state, city by city, organized and
established rights. We call them domestic workers Bill of Rights.
(13:01):
The first one passed in New York in and now
we have eleven statewide bills of rights for domestic workers
and two in the cities of Seattle and Philadelphia. And
one thing that's really powerful about this story is that
Virginia just became the most recent state this year, just
(13:23):
a month ago, to pass a domestic worker bill of rights,
and it's the first state in the South to pass
a bill. And it was championed by two amazing black women,
including one Senator McClellan, whose grandmother was a domestic worker
(13:44):
and was probably working at the time when the New
Deal excluded her. So it's just a kind of incredible
full circle of what we can do when we build movements,
when we organize, when we fall the leadership of black women,
UH to really change the course of history. Can you
(14:07):
give me some examples of what is in a domestic
workers bill of rights? What are domestic workers historically excluded from?
What are they fighting for and winning today? Domestic workers
in the nineteen thirties were excluded from the right to
collectively bargain and form a union. Um So the National
(14:30):
Labor Relations Act, which gives workers the right to join
a union and bargain collectively. UM Also, the Fair Labor
Standards Act, which established the right to minimum wage and
over time, excluded domestic workers initially, and many generations of
incredible women before US organized to try to win inclusion,
(14:53):
and in the nineteen seventies, thanks to the efforts of
a woman named Dorothy Bolden from George who led the
National Domestic Workers Union in the sixties, she was really
successful in gaining inclusion for most domestic workers in minimum
wage and overtime protections. And we've tried to build off
(15:15):
of that to win more and more. The state bills
make sure that they're they're all different, because every state's
labor laws are a little bit different. But in New
York we won protection from discrimination and harassment minimum of
three days paid leave three days per what period of
time over a year. Minimum of three days paid leave
(15:40):
for a three hundred sixty five day year. That seems
like a very modest ask. I mean, it wasn't what
we went in with, I'll tell you that much. But
you know, in Massachusetts we were able to win parental leave,
maternity leave for domestic workers. So every state is a
(16:00):
little different and um, And I would say that it's
all a work in progress, uh, and that organizing is
essential because even when there are rights on the books,
it really requires that we assert those rights and enforce them.
And it's hard to do that in an industry where
everyone is so spread out. I mean, you could go
(16:22):
into any neighborhood and not know which homes are also workplaces.
There's no list, there's no registry, there's no sign um.
And so how do you enforce rights and improve conditions
in that context? It takes really well educated, organized workers
(16:44):
who understand what their rights are and have the ability
to assert them. You describe a bit of your upbringing.
I got glimpses, and you're spending your life organizing with
domestic workers. How do you reconcile or address the fact
(17:04):
that you're not a domestic worker. I believe that domestic
workers deserve a powerful, excellent, impactful organization, and I want
to be a part of building that because I believe
(17:28):
that if we are to have a country that is equitable,
that puts the well being of women and people of
color at the center, UM, that we're going to need
domestic workers to have a really strong and powerful organization.
To get there. Um. In some ways, this idea that
(17:51):
the people that our systems have failed the longest are
in the best position to lead the way forward is
one that I just really we believe and has been
reinforced for me time and time again. So if I
can be a part of building the platform and the
vehicles for that to happen, I can't think of anywhere
(18:13):
I'd rather be. As you try to recruit more domestic
workers to these efforts, what are some of the great challenges.
I mean, most domestic workers are really just struggling to survive,
and especially now, it is a full blown depression for
(18:37):
this workforce. Um. People keep using the word recession, and
I'm like, what, it's a full blown depression. I mean
of our workforce is unemployed, a huge number undocumented, living
in fear of being separated from their families, and those
who are working are working for less money than they
were before the pandemic, and it was already poverty wages
(19:01):
coming in the average income of a home care worker
in America's seventeen thousand dollars per year. I mean, I
don't know a single town or a city in this
country where you can survive off of seventeen thousand dollars
a year, let alone raise your family. I remember one
early meeting in the pandemic where we had a zoom
(19:22):
call with domestic workers and one of our members held
up her phone to the zoom camera to show us
that there was literally one cent left in her bank account.
So just the day to day struggle to survive is
both the challenge and also the opportunity, because I do
think that for domestic workers, when we start to talk
(19:45):
to them and engage and listen, I think it's it's
becomes very clear, very quickly why we need to come
together and and what is there to lose really in
the end, So there are many challenges, but there are
also many many openings, and um right now in particular,
(20:09):
I think we are in this a new new Deal
moment honestly where more deeper, impactful change is possible than
my entire twenty five years of organizing. Literally it's stuff
that we've been chipping away at for decades. I feel
(20:30):
like it is really like just right there, right right there,
And so I'm of the mind that we have to
take every bit of power, every relationship, every ounce of
hope and determination that we have to win big for
(20:50):
our communities right now and um and I think domestic
workers are ready. I mean, we have more participation on
our membership call than ever before in a pandemic. So
I feel I feel excited and I feel hopeful we'll
be right back. M m mm hmmm mmmmm. I want
(21:27):
you to define some things for me and certainly for
our listeners. Can you define what the new Deal was
in terms of US history and then describe this new
new deal that you see the potential for in what's
new about it? I think that every few generations there
(21:50):
are these moments where social movements in our country, like
the labor movement of the nineteen thirties, the Seven Rights
movement of the sixties and seventies, catalyze a big opening
for structural change, meaning changes in our systems and our
(22:11):
policies that shape our lives and their moments where we
update our democracy for the next several generations to make
it better. And what the labor movement of the nineteen
thirties did was catalyzed this moment. It was also a
time when we were coming out of a depression an
economic crisis, and there needed to be a massive reset
(22:35):
and the New Deal was a moment where we put
these foundational, sweeping policies in place to try to reset
and adjust our economy and our democracy for the next phase.
And it was social movements that created the context for that, workers,
(22:55):
everyday people organizing, and it's always been the case. This
is our moment where the movement for Black Lives, the
re energized intersectional women's movement, all of our social movements
that have converged in really powerful ways that mobilized unprecedented
(23:17):
numbers of voters to turn out to the polls last year.
We have created the context, in addition to a pandemic
and the economic fallout of it, for another reset. And
so that's what I mean by new new deals like
this is our moment to reset our frameworks to better
(23:41):
match our values and our vision for the future. And
um movements created this moment of opportunity, and movements have
to kind of seal the deal and get us across
the finish line too, and if not the finish line,
at least another significant mile marker another not the finish
(24:02):
line by any stretch, that is correct. I stand corrected.
I love the image. I'm such a technical, technological person
and the idea of updating our democracy. I was like,
that's like an iOS firmware update, a new version of Android,
update the democracy firmware. Let's go, let's go. You use
(24:27):
the terms economy and democracy often impairs what is your
view of the connection between the economy and democracy. These
two things really do go hand in hand, because whoever
has power in our democracy is going to design policies
(24:48):
in the interests of those people, right, And the more
of us engage in our democracy, the more of us
can have a say over the kind of economic policy
see that shapes our lives and our work and our
wages and our ability to take care of our families.
It's uh, it's all connected, and the flywheel has been
(25:12):
going in the wrong direction, and we have the opportunity
to to flip it and have it be more of
a virtuous cycle where we the people, we engage, we vote,
we organize, we elect, and we move the elected to
(25:33):
pass the policies that we need in order to live well.
Then we go back again and we continue to organize
and build our power and vote more. And that is
how we make sure that our policies, including our economic policies,
work for all of us. What are some of the
(25:55):
national Domestic Worker Alliances accomplishments that you're most proud of.
I'm proud of this Virginia Bill because it is the
first bill of rights in the South, and it just
feels so important and symbolic. Um. I'm really proud of
the work we did last year to provide emergency cash
(26:17):
assistance to domestic workers who were impacted by the COVID crisis.
We distributed more than thirty million dollars to over fifty
thousand domestic workers who were impacted by the crisis. And
I am incredibly proud of this portable benefits platform. So
in the weeds, but we built a benefits platform called
(26:40):
Aaliyah that helps domestic workers get access to benefits for
the first time. And that feels really exciting. What makes
it portable? What does that mean? Oh, portable benefits just
mean that they follow you, so they're not attached to
one job, They're attached to you. So if you clean
ten houses, you can have all ton of your clients
(27:01):
contribute to your benefits fund and then you get to
pick what benefit you want to apply the money and
your fund towards. A lot of people pick paid time off.
But there's also other kinds of products that you can pick.
That's amazing. Um. There, I had a thought about a
portable benefits package everybody should have that. Why do we
(27:22):
lash our benefits, our health insurance to one particular job
that that's never quite made sense to me just as
a human being. So if you can bring that innovation,
we'll apply that update, hopefully across the whole economy and
update our economy operating system as well. I would love that.
It's so funny because we were contacted by blues musicians
(27:45):
in Chicago who basically were like, Hey, could this work
for us? Because we really need this too. And I
just think more and more of us all the time
fall through the cracks of an outdated safety net, which
is why we need to update system. And this is
a model for a model, right, um, for how we
(28:06):
might think about that. So we have this term in
the United States, uh, the working poor. You've been working
with people who are excluded historically, who are denied access
to standards, to rights, to the ability to organize. What
are your thoughts about the term and also about the
(28:27):
people who are in part at least defined by it.
It breaks my heart that we need to have that term,
that that term is even a thing, but it is
a thing. I mean, there are millions upon millions of
people who work incredibly hard every single day and still
can't pay the bills. And there was that incredible study
(28:50):
that happened way before the pandemic that showed that more
than half of all Americans didn't have the ability to
survive a four dollar unexpected crisis US. And that to me,
in a country like ours, with so many resources, so
(29:11):
much talent, so much abundance in every way, the fact
that that is the reality of work in America is
just it's crazy to me. It is crazy to me.
And until we fix that, I don't know that we
can get to the future that we want in this country.
(29:36):
So I guess what I think about that term is
that we need to work really hard to no longer
have that term and are vernacular. Mhm. This idea that
we have a group of people called the working poor
suggest that folks can work maybe two full time jobs
(29:57):
and still not have enough money to survive. Has that
always been the case? Is it has it gotten worse?
I wonder if it was always a thing for some
communities in Black communities, in immigrant communities, there was a
way in which parts of the economy were created where
(30:22):
it was acceptable to pay people a lot less to
work very hard UM, and the narrative was associated with
race and gender because we are somehow less, we are
somehow less than fully human, less than skilled, less than right.
(30:46):
That there was a narrative that was very much racialized
and gendered UM that enabled um the creation of jobs
in our labor market that were essentially poverty wage jobs,
jobs that you can survive on. And I think it
has gotten worse. It has to do with the concentration
(31:11):
of power in the hands and in the interests of
a tiny wealthy elite and corporations. And the reality is
that working people have generated a ton of wealth. Productivity
is off the charts. People are working and they are
(31:33):
not benefiting. And every year they benefit less from the
productivity and the profits that they generate. And we have
over time worn away at our safety net. I mean,
in the nineties, when I first started doing this work,
it was seen as marginal, you know, just kind of
(31:54):
on the edges and the shadows of our economy. Today,
when I look around, more, more and more people work
under those same circumstances of unpredictable hours, you don't even
know sometimes who your boss is, You work for an
app um, you don't have benefits, you don't have job security,
(32:17):
and you're piecing it together. And it's kind of like
the domestic work ification of work in our country. And
it's kind of like people of color, women of color
saw that first. And what we've had is a gravitational
pull downward for everybody else, while people who benefit from
(32:37):
the status quo benefit more and more. Why do you
think that is such a real way of life in
this country right now? Because workers do not have enough
power in our economy. And the way that we build
power to do those things is by coming together other
(33:00):
and organizing and building movements, and and we've done it
in the past. Um. It is not an accident that
manufacturing jobs went from in the nineteen twenties and thirties
dangerous poverty wage sweatshop jobs that a lot of immigrants did,
two jobs that so called became the pathway to the
(33:23):
middle class. Right, They became good jobs where one generation
could do better than the next and you could own
a home and support a family. And that was not
an accident. That was organizing. That was workers building power.
You're you're putting agency back into the historical narrative there,
(33:46):
because I think media has learned that it just got better,
because America is a great place where things get better
all the time. Um and and there's a missing player
in that story, which is workers organizing to make it
better and to clear also multi racial organizing, workers coming
together across race and community and religion and culture to
(34:11):
find power and community in each other and with each other.
That is the unstoppable force. I can understand why a
worker would want more money, more security, more safety, more benefits.
That's good for the worker. Why is it good for
(34:34):
the business owner, the larger society, the random politician, for
the rest of us. The beautiful thing about care work
is that investing in it is like such a win
win win. If we make for example, home care jobs
(34:58):
good jobs, it not only benefits those workers and their families,
but it makes it possible for everybody else to get
back to work because we all need care. I mean,
this pandemic has pushed two million women out of the workforce,
(35:18):
disproportionately women of color, and largely because of caregiving challenges.
And it has revealed that care is essential, that we
cannot work if we do not have child care, and
if we do not have support for our loved ones
with disabilities, if we do not have care for our elders.
(35:41):
It is fundamental. It's like infrastructure. We think about infrastructure
as bridges and tunnels and broadband, But what could be
more fundamental infrastructure than the ability to make sure that
our families are loved ones are cared for so that
we can work. I call these jobs job enabling jobs
(36:02):
because they make it possible for everything else to work
and everyone else to work. What if we could allow
for every care worker who wants to do this work
to do so and feel like they are respected and
sustained in this work, and also take care of their
families too. Such a simple, simple idea, but so powerful.
(36:25):
We all need care. We all need care, and the
idea of care as infrastructure should trademark that. That's pretty good,
it's pretty thank you. I'm really trying to get members
of Congress to see it that way. So, um, what
have you learned about our economy through all your years
of organizing? What stands outmost to you? I am still
(36:54):
twenty years in I first started organizing domestic workers. And
I'm still shocked and appalled that this work of nurturing
children and the potential of our babies, making sure that
they're safe, um, the work of supporting the independence and
(37:20):
quality of life of people with disabilities, the work of
making sure our elders can age with dignity, that that
work is some of the least valued, most underpaid work
in our economy is still shocking to me because it
(37:40):
is so profound and so fundamental our economy and what
we value is upside down. Yeah, what would right side
up look like? One that we wouldn't need this term
as so to work because we would understand that everyone
(38:03):
who's working is essential and that all work would have
inherent dignity where you could hold your head up high
and be proud of what you do and know that
your contributions were valued and that your humanity was recognized.
That's what right side up looks like. Well, thank you
(38:27):
for your work on behalf of those workers, on behalf
of us all. You've given me so much to think about. Egen,
I appreciate your time, uh and your labor. Thank you
so much. Thank you. As I was listening to and
(38:56):
talking with Eigen, I kept thinking, as well, I'm not
a domestic worker. I'm not in the working class. I
can pay my bills thankfully fingers crossedly. So why do
I care about all this? Because I know we can't
do this alone, Because even with my privilege, I have
(39:19):
been at the edge. I have had to borrow money
from friends to pay rent. I have been behind on
debt payments on those student loans. I have felt the
insecurity of exorbitant healthcare expenses that I thought would be
covered by my insurance, only to find out that they weren't.
So wherever any of us is on that spectrum, I
(39:42):
think we have an interest in making sure everybody's taken
care of. And I know that the types of things
that we need to do together are bigger than my
own individual financial security. I can't build a road all
by myself, and we can't take care of each other
all by ourselves. As Eigen put it, care is infrastructure,
(40:07):
and in a sign of progress, I think it's been
nice to hear our own President of the United States
and his infrastructure proposal use that similar language and try
to fund more domestic work. In this idea of infrastructure funding,
I feel good even hearing some of the challenges, because
(40:30):
Eigen reminded me that we are a part of potential
waves of historic progress, that we're in this moment, and
that progress only comes because we work, we organize. I know,
we hear this phrase a lot. The arc of the
moral universe bends towards justice. People bend that arc, preferably
(40:51):
large numbers of them with very strong bungee courts. And
we bend it by organizing, by working hard, by coopera
rating with one another to get all the things we
all deserve, which includes work with dignity. Next week, coop
organizer Jamila Medley shows us what an economy built on
(41:13):
cooperation looks like. Now, our Prince Sam is going to
tell you what to do, and you better do what
they tell you. I'm just gonna put it like that.
You know, I just don't want to be on Sam's
bad side, So seriously do everything Sam says. Think about
(41:34):
someone in your life who has cared for you. Think
about the value of that relationship. It could be a
family member and neighbor, a childcare provider, or some other
caregiver in your life. Give them a shout out, call
them and just let them know that you appreciate them.
Be an ethical employer, even at home. The National Domestic
Workers Alliance has a sister organization. It's called Hand in Hand,
(41:55):
and it offers support to employers of domestic workers. Check
out the resources on their website, Domestic Employers dot org
to learn how you can ethically emplace someone in your home.
If you're curious about the portable benefits agen mentioned, here's
two platforms that we've found promising Opolis and the Portable
Benefit Network. Share these options with others in your network
(42:15):
so many more people can vote with their dollars and
push for portable benefits as a part of a more
equitable working feature. Lastly, support the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.
After winning domestic workers Bills of Rights in nine states
and two cities, the National Domestic Workers Alliance is leading
an effort to pass a national Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.
(42:35):
Follow the link in the show notes to add your
name and support. If you're take into these actions, please
brag about yourself online using the hashtag how to citizen
and send us general feedback or ideas for the show.
Two comments at how to citizen dot com. Speaking of
that domain name, we have one and we're using it.
Visit how to citizen dot com to sign up for
(42:57):
our newsletter. Will learn about upcoming the vints or even
more stuff than that. And if you like the show,
spread the word, tell somebody. If you don't, definitely just
keep it to yourself. Appreciate you. How does Citizen with
barrettun Day is a production of I Heart Radio Podcasts
(43:18):
and dust Like Productions. Our executive producers are Me barretton Day, Thurston,
Elizabeth Stewart, and Misha Yuson. Our producers are Stephanie Comb
and Ali Kilts. Kelly Prime is our editor, Valentino Rivera
is our engineer, and Sam Paulson is our apprentice. Original
music by Andrew Eaping. This episode was produced and sound
(43:40):
designed by Sam Paulson. Special thanks to Joel Smith from
my Heart Radio.
Hey, I'm barratone day Thurston and this is how to
citizen with Barratton. When I was about seven years old,
I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.
My classmates were like astronaut, doctor, Not this guy. This
(00:24):
guy was like garbage man. Yes, because, oh my goodness,
all the reasons that truck. I would hear the truck
coming up the block and race to the front porch
to see the coolest dudes that ever lived hanging off
the back of the truck as it rolled up the street.
A street it shouldn't have been able to fit up,
(00:45):
but because the driver was so good skills, I'm talking skills,
they could navigate any urban environment. And you're looking so
cool hanging off the back of that truck. And they
leap off the truck and they pick up the trash,
and I'm like, this is a when when I don't
even I can't even count the amount of winds there
are in that job. You're gonna pay me money to
(01:06):
let me look cool, pick up trash and get free stuff. Yes.
And if the garbage man life wasn't for me, my
fall back dream job was gardener. Yeah, little garden Bartun Day.
I was a member of a community garden. I grew
food for my family. I'm trying to provide for my family.
(01:28):
It was so much fun. And I guess the threat
is I like getting my hands dirty. I just I
wanted money for dirty. That was the calculus of young
Baritone Day. And there are millions of Americans who have
worked getting their hands dirty for all of us, in
jobs that many of us can't or don't want to do.
(01:51):
But the difference between the early nineteen eighties when I
had these dreams and now is that so many of
these people don't make nearly enough, don't have the protections
they need to take care of themselves and their families.
You've heard me say this before, but it's hard to
citizen when you can't pay the bills and wealth inequality
(02:11):
in this country is making it hard for increasing numbers
of people to do just that. Now that inequality was
baked in from the start through racism and exclusion. Then
you add unchecked corporate growth on top of that, concentrating
economic power in the hands of the few and not
the many. As a result, we've got a whole class
(02:32):
of people who are trapped in poverty, perpetual insecurity, no
matter how much or how hard they work. We call
them the working poor. The system is designed to keep
them poor. And that same system encourages us to always
think of ourselves as individuals, which is convenient for the
(02:55):
status quo because it's overwhelming to think of yourself as
a worker versus an entire corporation, or as a citizen
versus the whole system. But when we think together, when
we come together, we can change these outcomes. There is
a better way. This is how to citizen y'all. And
(03:15):
we're not gonna leave you hanging on the problem and
wallowing that note. We're gonna point toward those solutions. Now
I knew who we had to talk to on this topic.
I sat down with someone who's organizing with one of
the most historically discriminated groups of workers in our nation's history.
Today's guest is I Gen Poop. She's been helping domestic
(03:38):
workers lead a charge for fairness, the fairness all workers needs,
so they can live with security, live with dignity, so
they can show up for themselves, for their families, their communities,
and all of us. We have to take every bit
of power, every relationship, every ounce of hope and determination
(03:59):
that we have of to win big for our communities
right now, and I think domestic workers are ready. We
meet Eigen after the brain Let's start with you introducing yourself.
(04:29):
Say your name and what you do. My name is
I Gen Poo, and I work for the National Domestic
Workers Alliance, which is an organization that works with nanny's
housekeepers and home care workers to build our power and
to win dignity, respect, and fairness. Mm hmm, dignity, respect,
(04:55):
those are all great things. I co signed. Where do
I sign up? When you were growing going up, what
did you want to be? I actually wanted to be
a writer, um, because I'm actually kind of an introvert.
And then as I got older, I started working with Clay,
and my pottery teacher became one of my best friends
(05:18):
and mentors, and the ceramics studio became kind of a
refuge for me. So then I thought maybe I should
be a potter until I ended up in New York
City and in the world of organizing and activism. So
you're shaping Clay. Take the leap with me from shaping
(05:39):
Clay to shaping the world. What's the jump into activism?
Where did that first show up in your life? Well,
I think it was because I was raised by my
mom and my grandma and um, and they're just such strong,
powerful women who did so much, like really moved of
(06:00):
mountains every day, and I just thought they walked on
water and could do anything. And you know, I saw
women doing that in the community, and I think I
just assumed that if they were powering everything, that they
would be in charge of everything, actually in power, and um,
you know, very quickly you realize that that's not the case.
(06:21):
And in fact, so much of what women do to
power our world is not visible or certainly not valued,
often not protected. And so I think I just was
always drawn towards women's issues, women's organizations. I became a
women's studies major in college and got involved in the
(06:43):
New York Asian Women's Center when I moved to New York,
and I was kind of a journey from there. Do
you remember a formative experience that first got you interested
in workers rights? Yes, I think it happened in stages. Um.
I would is volunteering for the hotline at the New
York Asian Women's Center, and it's a domestic violence shelter
(07:06):
for Asian immigrant women, and because my grandparents played such
a role in raising me, I spoke Mandarin, albeit twelve
year old Mandarin, but I did, and so I volunteered
on the bilingual hotline and survivors UM would call and
they would talk about their experiences of violence and abuse,
(07:29):
but they would also talk about just how hard it
was to survive doing the work that they did, and
feeling like they just didn't have real choices to take
care of themselves and keep themselves and their families safe
because they worked in jobs that didn't pay the bills,
where they couldn't put food on the table and keep
(07:51):
a roof over their heads and the lights on for
their families. And I also was volunteering at an organization
called the Committee Against Anti Asian Violence, which is also
now called CALV organizing Asian Communities. And at the time
there were a group of us who We're seeing the
women in the Asian immigrant community working in these low
(08:14):
wage jobs, restaurant work, um nail salon work, domestic work,
and seeing just how impossible it was to make a
living doing these jobs. So we started organizing healthfares and
know your rights events just to see if there was
(08:35):
interest on the part of women um in these jobs
to organize to come together. And it was always the
domestic workers who would come to the meetings and really
understood how valuable and powerful it is to break out
of the isolation of your day to day life and
joined together with others. And they really seem like they
(08:58):
understood the potential of organizing, and so we just really
continued to work with At the time, it was Filipina
domestic workers organizing bringing people together, and a number of them,
before they had come to New York, had worked in
Hong Kong, where there's really like a powerful domestic workers
(09:19):
movement that has been built there over many many years,
and they had a standard contract and clear rights and protections.
And so the Filipinas who worked in Hong Kong before
coming to New York were shocked when they came to
New York to find that in the United States, which
is supposed to be kind of a bastion of freedom globally,
(09:42):
that they had less rights and less protections and less standards.
And they immediately said, you know, we need to organize
with our sisters from all different communities, especially Caribbean women
who were the majority of domestic workers in New York
UM at the time, and and every an he needs
to come together so that we can have standards and
(10:03):
protections and rights. And that in many ways was the
beginnings of the domestic workers movement generation that I was
a part of a New York city and our national
movement which has now grown. We're in all fifty states now.
We have seventy five local affiliates and chapters all over
(10:25):
the country and a community of about two hundred and
eighty thousand domestic workers and UM and we're building every day.
Two hundred eighty thousand. That's an army right there. So
you speak of standards, rights privileges for domestic workers, what
(10:48):
are those like? What does the domestic worker need or
what was missing that other workers have that you noticed
domestic workers didn't have. There's a really deep history here
the not a lot of people know, which is that. Well,
if we think about it, it kind of makes sense
because the work that domestic workers do has always been
(11:08):
associated with work that women do, write, caregiving, cleaning, and
it's been really kind of taken for granted in our
culture that women will just do that work on top
of everything else. As a profession, it's always been associated
with women of color. Many of our first domestic workers
were enslaved African women, and then ever since then, it's
(11:31):
always been black, brown Asian Native women doing this work.
Immigrant women. It's the part of our workforce with the
largest concentration of undocumented immigrants of any industry. UM. But
that history of racism, UM, and the legacy of slavery
(11:52):
has so profoundly shaped our workforce from day one, UM.
And the kind of signature moment of this was in
the nineteen thirties when Congress was discussing the New Deal
labor laws, the labor laws that would be the foundation
of our countries rights for workers. Southern di secrats refused
(12:16):
to support those bills if they included farm workers and
domestic workers. Southern member of Congress essentially UM. And that exclusion,
explicit exclusion of domestic workers from those labor laws really
set the tone for how this workforce would be treated
(12:39):
and how it would always be treated as less than
real work. UM. And so so many laws exclude domestic
workers at the federal level. And what we've tried to
do is state by state, city by city, organized and
established rights. We call them domestic workers Bill of Rights.
(13:01):
The first one passed in New York in and now
we have eleven statewide bills of rights for domestic workers
and two in the cities of Seattle and Philadelphia. And
one thing that's really powerful about this story is that
Virginia just became the most recent state this year, just
(13:23):
a month ago, to pass a domestic worker bill of rights,
and it's the first state in the South to pass
a bill. And it was championed by two amazing black women,
including one Senator McClellan, whose grandmother was a domestic worker
(13:44):
and was probably working at the time when the New
Deal excluded her. So it's just a kind of incredible
full circle of what we can do when we build movements,
when we organize, when we fall the leadership of black women,
UH to really change the course of history. Can you
(14:07):
give me some examples of what is in a domestic
workers bill of rights? What are domestic workers historically excluded from?
What are they fighting for and winning today? Domestic workers
in the nineteen thirties were excluded from the right to
collectively bargain and form a union. Um So the National
(14:30):
Labor Relations Act, which gives workers the right to join
a union and bargain collectively. UM Also, the Fair Labor
Standards Act, which established the right to minimum wage and
over time, excluded domestic workers initially, and many generations of
incredible women before US organized to try to win inclusion,
(14:53):
and in the nineteen seventies, thanks to the efforts of
a woman named Dorothy Bolden from George who led the
National Domestic Workers Union in the sixties, she was really
successful in gaining inclusion for most domestic workers in minimum
wage and overtime protections. And we've tried to build off
(15:15):
of that to win more and more. The state bills
make sure that they're they're all different, because every state's
labor laws are a little bit different. But in New
York we won protection from discrimination and harassment minimum of
three days paid leave three days per what period of
time over a year. Minimum of three days paid leave
(15:40):
for a three hundred sixty five day year. That seems
like a very modest ask. I mean, it wasn't what
we went in with, I'll tell you that much. But
you know, in Massachusetts we were able to win parental leave,
maternity leave for domestic workers. So every state is a
(16:00):
little different and um, And I would say that it's
all a work in progress, uh, and that organizing is
essential because even when there are rights on the books,
it really requires that we assert those rights and enforce them.
And it's hard to do that in an industry where
everyone is so spread out. I mean, you could go
(16:22):
into any neighborhood and not know which homes are also workplaces.
There's no list, there's no registry, there's no sign um.
And so how do you enforce rights and improve conditions
in that context? It takes really well educated, organized workers
(16:44):
who understand what their rights are and have the ability
to assert them. You describe a bit of your upbringing.
I got glimpses, and you're spending your life organizing with
domestic workers. How do you reconcile or address the fact
(17:04):
that you're not a domestic worker. I believe that domestic
workers deserve a powerful, excellent, impactful organization, and I want
to be a part of building that because I believe
(17:28):
that if we are to have a country that is equitable,
that puts the well being of women and people of
color at the center, UM, that we're going to need
domestic workers to have a really strong and powerful organization.
To get there. Um. In some ways, this idea that
(17:51):
the people that our systems have failed the longest are
in the best position to lead the way forward is
one that I just really we believe and has been
reinforced for me time and time again. So if I
can be a part of building the platform and the
vehicles for that to happen, I can't think of anywhere
(18:13):
I'd rather be. As you try to recruit more domestic
workers to these efforts, what are some of the great challenges.
I mean, most domestic workers are really just struggling to survive,
and especially now, it is a full blown depression for
(18:37):
this workforce. Um. People keep using the word recession, and
I'm like, what, it's a full blown depression. I mean
of our workforce is unemployed, a huge number undocumented, living
in fear of being separated from their families, and those
who are working are working for less money than they
were before the pandemic, and it was already poverty wages
(19:01):
coming in the average income of a home care worker
in America's seventeen thousand dollars per year. I mean, I
don't know a single town or a city in this
country where you can survive off of seventeen thousand dollars
a year, let alone raise your family. I remember one
early meeting in the pandemic where we had a zoom
(19:22):
call with domestic workers and one of our members held
up her phone to the zoom camera to show us
that there was literally one cent left in her bank account.
So just the day to day struggle to survive is
both the challenge and also the opportunity, because I do
think that for domestic workers, when we start to talk
(19:45):
to them and engage and listen, I think it's it's
becomes very clear, very quickly why we need to come
together and and what is there to lose really in
the end, So there are many challenges, but there are
also many many openings, and um right now in particular,
(20:09):
I think we are in this a new new Deal
moment honestly where more deeper, impactful change is possible than
my entire twenty five years of organizing. Literally it's stuff
that we've been chipping away at for decades. I feel
(20:30):
like it is really like just right there, right right there,
And so I'm of the mind that we have to
take every bit of power, every relationship, every ounce of
hope and determination that we have to win big for
(20:50):
our communities right now and um and I think domestic
workers are ready. I mean, we have more participation on
our membership call than ever before in a pandemic. So
I feel I feel excited and I feel hopeful we'll
be right back. M m mm hmmm mmmmm. I want
(21:27):
you to define some things for me and certainly for
our listeners. Can you define what the new Deal was
in terms of US history and then describe this new
new deal that you see the potential for in what's
new about it? I think that every few generations there
(21:50):
are these moments where social movements in our country, like
the labor movement of the nineteen thirties, the Seven Rights
movement of the sixties and seventies, catalyze a big opening
for structural change, meaning changes in our systems and our
(22:11):
policies that shape our lives and their moments where we
update our democracy for the next several generations to make
it better. And what the labor movement of the nineteen
thirties did was catalyzed this moment. It was also a
time when we were coming out of a depression an
economic crisis, and there needed to be a massive reset
(22:35):
and the New Deal was a moment where we put
these foundational, sweeping policies in place to try to reset
and adjust our economy and our democracy for the next phase.
And it was social movements that created the context for that, workers,
(22:55):
everyday people organizing, and it's always been the case. This
is our moment where the movement for Black Lives, the
re energized intersectional women's movement, all of our social movements
that have converged in really powerful ways that mobilized unprecedented
(23:17):
numbers of voters to turn out to the polls last year.
We have created the context, in addition to a pandemic
and the economic fallout of it, for another reset. And
so that's what I mean by new new deals like
this is our moment to reset our frameworks to better
(23:41):
match our values and our vision for the future. And
um movements created this moment of opportunity, and movements have
to kind of seal the deal and get us across
the finish line too, and if not the finish line,
at least another significant mile marker another not the finish
(24:02):
line by any stretch, that is correct. I stand corrected.
I love the image. I'm such a technical, technological person
and the idea of updating our democracy. I was like,
that's like an iOS firmware update, a new version of Android,
update the democracy firmware. Let's go, let's go. You use
(24:27):
the terms economy and democracy often impairs what is your
view of the connection between the economy and democracy. These
two things really do go hand in hand, because whoever
has power in our democracy is going to design policies
(24:48):
in the interests of those people, right, And the more
of us engage in our democracy, the more of us
can have a say over the kind of economic policy
see that shapes our lives and our work and our
wages and our ability to take care of our families.
It's uh, it's all connected, and the flywheel has been
(25:12):
going in the wrong direction, and we have the opportunity
to to flip it and have it be more of
a virtuous cycle where we the people, we engage, we vote,
we organize, we elect, and we move the elected to
(25:33):
pass the policies that we need in order to live well.
Then we go back again and we continue to organize
and build our power and vote more. And that is
how we make sure that our policies, including our economic policies,
work for all of us. What are some of the
(25:55):
national Domestic Worker Alliances accomplishments that you're most proud of.
I'm proud of this Virginia Bill because it is the
first bill of rights in the South, and it just
feels so important and symbolic. Um. I'm really proud of
the work we did last year to provide emergency cash
(26:17):
assistance to domestic workers who were impacted by the COVID crisis.
We distributed more than thirty million dollars to over fifty
thousand domestic workers who were impacted by the crisis. And
I am incredibly proud of this portable benefits platform. So
in the weeds, but we built a benefits platform called
(26:40):
Aaliyah that helps domestic workers get access to benefits for
the first time. And that feels really exciting. What makes
it portable? What does that mean? Oh, portable benefits just
mean that they follow you, so they're not attached to
one job, They're attached to you. So if you clean
ten houses, you can have all ton of your clients
(27:01):
contribute to your benefits fund and then you get to
pick what benefit you want to apply the money and
your fund towards. A lot of people pick paid time off.
But there's also other kinds of products that you can pick.
That's amazing. Um. There, I had a thought about a
portable benefits package everybody should have that. Why do we
(27:22):
lash our benefits, our health insurance to one particular job
that that's never quite made sense to me just as
a human being. So if you can bring that innovation,
we'll apply that update, hopefully across the whole economy and
update our economy operating system as well. I would love that.
It's so funny because we were contacted by blues musicians
(27:45):
in Chicago who basically were like, Hey, could this work
for us? Because we really need this too. And I
just think more and more of us all the time
fall through the cracks of an outdated safety net, which
is why we need to update system. And this is
a model for a model, right, um, for how we
(28:06):
might think about that. So we have this term in
the United States, uh, the working poor. You've been working
with people who are excluded historically, who are denied access
to standards, to rights, to the ability to organize. What
are your thoughts about the term and also about the
(28:27):
people who are in part at least defined by it.
It breaks my heart that we need to have that term,
that that term is even a thing, but it is
a thing. I mean, there are millions upon millions of
people who work incredibly hard every single day and still
can't pay the bills. And there was that incredible study
(28:50):
that happened way before the pandemic that showed that more
than half of all Americans didn't have the ability to
survive a four dollar unexpected crisis US. And that to me,
in a country like ours, with so many resources, so
(29:11):
much talent, so much abundance in every way, the fact
that that is the reality of work in America is
just it's crazy to me. It is crazy to me.
And until we fix that, I don't know that we
can get to the future that we want in this country.
(29:36):
So I guess what I think about that term is
that we need to work really hard to no longer
have that term and are vernacular. Mhm. This idea that
we have a group of people called the working poor
suggest that folks can work maybe two full time jobs
(29:57):
and still not have enough money to survive. Has that
always been the case? Is it has it gotten worse?
I wonder if it was always a thing for some
communities in Black communities, in immigrant communities, there was a
way in which parts of the economy were created where
(30:22):
it was acceptable to pay people a lot less to
work very hard UM, and the narrative was associated with
race and gender because we are somehow less, we are
somehow less than fully human, less than skilled, less than right.
(30:46):
That there was a narrative that was very much racialized
and gendered UM that enabled um the creation of jobs
in our labor market that were essentially poverty wage jobs,
jobs that you can survive on. And I think it
has gotten worse. It has to do with the concentration
(31:11):
of power in the hands and in the interests of
a tiny wealthy elite and corporations. And the reality is
that working people have generated a ton of wealth. Productivity
is off the charts. People are working and they are
(31:33):
not benefiting. And every year they benefit less from the
productivity and the profits that they generate. And we have
over time worn away at our safety net. I mean,
in the nineties, when I first started doing this work,
it was seen as marginal, you know, just kind of
(31:54):
on the edges and the shadows of our economy. Today,
when I look around, more, more and more people work
under those same circumstances of unpredictable hours, you don't even
know sometimes who your boss is, You work for an
app um, you don't have benefits, you don't have job security,
(32:17):
and you're piecing it together. And it's kind of like
the domestic work ification of work in our country. And
it's kind of like people of color, women of color
saw that first. And what we've had is a gravitational
pull downward for everybody else, while people who benefit from
(32:37):
the status quo benefit more and more. Why do you
think that is such a real way of life in
this country right now? Because workers do not have enough
power in our economy. And the way that we build
power to do those things is by coming together other
(33:00):
and organizing and building movements, and and we've done it
in the past. Um. It is not an accident that
manufacturing jobs went from in the nineteen twenties and thirties
dangerous poverty wage sweatshop jobs that a lot of immigrants did,
two jobs that so called became the pathway to the
(33:23):
middle class. Right, They became good jobs where one generation
could do better than the next and you could own
a home and support a family. And that was not
an accident. That was organizing. That was workers building power.
You're you're putting agency back into the historical narrative there,
(33:46):
because I think media has learned that it just got better,
because America is a great place where things get better
all the time. Um and and there's a missing player
in that story, which is workers organizing to make it
better and to clear also multi racial organizing, workers coming
together across race and community and religion and culture to
(34:11):
find power and community in each other and with each other.
That is the unstoppable force. I can understand why a
worker would want more money, more security, more safety, more benefits.
That's good for the worker. Why is it good for
(34:34):
the business owner, the larger society, the random politician, for
the rest of us. The beautiful thing about care work
is that investing in it is like such a win
win win. If we make for example, home care jobs
(34:58):
good jobs, it not only benefits those workers and their families,
but it makes it possible for everybody else to get
back to work because we all need care. I mean,
this pandemic has pushed two million women out of the workforce,
(35:18):
disproportionately women of color, and largely because of caregiving challenges.
And it has revealed that care is essential, that we
cannot work if we do not have child care, and
if we do not have support for our loved ones
with disabilities, if we do not have care for our elders.
(35:41):
It is fundamental. It's like infrastructure. We think about infrastructure
as bridges and tunnels and broadband, But what could be
more fundamental infrastructure than the ability to make sure that
our families are loved ones are cared for so that
we can work. I call these jobs job enabling jobs
(36:02):
because they make it possible for everything else to work
and everyone else to work. What if we could allow
for every care worker who wants to do this work
to do so and feel like they are respected and
sustained in this work, and also take care of their
families too. Such a simple, simple idea, but so powerful.
(36:25):
We all need care. We all need care, and the
idea of care as infrastructure should trademark that. That's pretty good,
it's pretty thank you. I'm really trying to get members
of Congress to see it that way. So, um, what
have you learned about our economy through all your years
of organizing? What stands outmost to you? I am still
(36:54):
twenty years in I first started organizing domestic workers. And
I'm still shocked and appalled that this work of nurturing
children and the potential of our babies, making sure that
they're safe, um, the work of supporting the independence and
(37:20):
quality of life of people with disabilities, the work of
making sure our elders can age with dignity, that that
work is some of the least valued, most underpaid work
in our economy is still shocking to me because it
(37:40):
is so profound and so fundamental our economy and what
we value is upside down. Yeah, what would right side
up look like? One that we wouldn't need this term
as so to work because we would understand that everyone
(38:03):
who's working is essential and that all work would have
inherent dignity where you could hold your head up high
and be proud of what you do and know that
your contributions were valued and that your humanity was recognized.
That's what right side up looks like. Well, thank you
(38:27):
for your work on behalf of those workers, on behalf
of us all. You've given me so much to think about. Egen,
I appreciate your time, uh and your labor. Thank you
so much. Thank you. As I was listening to and
(38:56):
talking with Eigen, I kept thinking, as well, I'm not
a domestic worker. I'm not in the working class. I
can pay my bills thankfully fingers crossedly. So why do
I care about all this? Because I know we can't
do this alone, Because even with my privilege, I have
(39:19):
been at the edge. I have had to borrow money
from friends to pay rent. I have been behind on
debt payments on those student loans. I have felt the
insecurity of exorbitant healthcare expenses that I thought would be
covered by my insurance, only to find out that they weren't.
So wherever any of us is on that spectrum, I
(39:42):
think we have an interest in making sure everybody's taken
care of. And I know that the types of things
that we need to do together are bigger than my
own individual financial security. I can't build a road all
by myself, and we can't take care of each other
all by ourselves. As Eigen put it, care is infrastructure,
(40:07):
and in a sign of progress, I think it's been
nice to hear our own President of the United States
and his infrastructure proposal use that similar language and try
to fund more domestic work. In this idea of infrastructure funding,
I feel good even hearing some of the challenges, because
(40:30):
Eigen reminded me that we are a part of potential
waves of historic progress, that we're in this moment, and
that progress only comes because we work, we organize. I know,
we hear this phrase a lot. The arc of the
moral universe bends towards justice. People bend that arc, preferably
(40:51):
large numbers of them with very strong bungee courts. And
we bend it by organizing, by working hard, by coopera
rating with one another to get all the things we
all deserve, which includes work with dignity. Next week, coop
organizer Jamila Medley shows us what an economy built on
(41:13):
cooperation looks like. Now, our Prince Sam is going to
tell you what to do, and you better do what
they tell you. I'm just gonna put it like that.
You know, I just don't want to be on Sam's
bad side, So seriously do everything Sam says. Think about
(41:34):
someone in your life who has cared for you. Think
about the value of that relationship. It could be a
family member and neighbor, a childcare provider, or some other
caregiver in your life. Give them a shout out, call
them and just let them know that you appreciate them.
Be an ethical employer, even at home. The National Domestic
Workers Alliance has a sister organization. It's called Hand in Hand,
(41:55):
and it offers support to employers of domestic workers. Check
out the resources on their website, Domestic Employers dot org
to learn how you can ethically emplace someone in your home.
If you're curious about the portable benefits agen mentioned, here's
two platforms that we've found promising Opolis and the Portable
Benefit Network. Share these options with others in your network
(42:15):
so many more people can vote with their dollars and
push for portable benefits as a part of a more
equitable working feature. Lastly, support the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.
After winning domestic workers Bills of Rights in nine states
and two cities, the National Domestic Workers Alliance is leading
an effort to pass a national Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.
(42:35):
Follow the link in the show notes to add your
name and support. If you're take into these actions, please
brag about yourself online using the hashtag how to citizen
and send us general feedback or ideas for the show.
Two comments at how to citizen dot com. Speaking of
that domain name, we have one and we're using it.
Visit how to citizen dot com to sign up for
(42:57):
our newsletter. Will learn about upcoming the vints or even
more stuff than that. And if you like the show,
spread the word, tell somebody. If you don't, definitely just
keep it to yourself. Appreciate you. How does Citizen with
barrettun Day is a production of I Heart Radio Podcasts
(43:18):
and dust Like Productions. Our executive producers are Me barretton Day, Thurston,
Elizabeth Stewart, and Misha Yuson. Our producers are Stephanie Comb
and Ali Kilts. Kelly Prime is our editor, Valentino Rivera
is our engineer, and Sam Paulson is our apprentice. Original
music by Andrew Eaping. This episode was produced and sound
(43:40):
designed by Sam Paulson. Special thanks to Joel Smith from
my Heart Radio.
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