NJ Domestic Workers 1 Step Closer to Protections
Bill of Rights Passes Senate, Now Goes to Assembly for Vote
The state Senate has approved a bill of rights for the state’s approximately 50,000 domestic workers that the National Domestic Workers Alliance calls “groundbreaking legislation” that could “transform” these workers’ lives.
The bill — S723 — now goes to the Assembly (as A822) for a vote in the new year. The bill faces a deadline of Jan. 9, when the legislative session ends and all unapproved legislation expires.
A federal study indicates that “92 percent of domestic workers are women and about one third are immigrants,” according to the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University. They suffer from “the low value attached to care work and the difficulty of regulating work that occurs in private homes,” facing abuses like wage theft, unpredictable work schedules, sexual harassment and abuse, and physical harm.
I talked with several domestic workers yesterday via Zoom for a piece I’ll be writing for The Progressive. They each shared stories of abuse or neglect by employers — injuries on the job that were not addressed, over work and withheld pay, retribution and firings — that left them feeling vulnerable.
The domestic workers all said the same thing: Pass the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights so we have protections.
The Senate — at least its Democrats — appears to have listened. The bill was approved 24-11 along party lines, with five members (two Democrats and three Republicans) not voting. Vincent Polistina, who represents Atlantic County, was the only Republican to vote in favor of the bill.
The legislation, if approved by the Assembly and signed into law by Gov. Phil Murphy, would define a domestic workers as “defines domestic workers as hourly and salaried employees, full-time and part-time individuals, and temporary individuals, each one of whom works for one or more employers, and works in residence caring for a child; serving as a companion or caretaker for a sick, convalescing, elderly, or disabled person; housekeeping or house cleaning; cooking; providing food or butler service; parking cars; cleaning laundry; gardening; personal organizing; or for any other domestic service purpose,” according to the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee statement. These workers currently are excluded from state discrimination law — an exemption that the bill would end. The bill also sets break and consecutive-workday rules, protects workers by requiring written contracts that do not have non-disclosure provisions or other exemptions, and prevents employers from taking possession of workers’ personal documents, such as passports or other immigration documents.
Sen. Codey said in a press statement that the workers covered by the bill are “essential workers,” while earning “among the lowest wages of all occupations and often fall(ing) victim to poor working conditions, wage theft, unpredictable work schedules, and other forms of employer abuse.”
This is not hyperbole. Marta Cecilia Ramirez, for instance, told me she had been hired as a nanny at $11 an hour in Dover in Morris County last year to take care of a 2-year-old girl. The job was physically taxing, she said, and required her to do more than just take care of the child, including cooking, cleaning, and laundry.
When the family had a second child — essentially doubling her work — she asked for a raise. They refused, telling her that she didn’t deserve then extra pay because she doesn't speak English, doesn’t have a care license, and didn't have transportation. Instead of a raise, they required her to work longer hours at the same pay rate before they fired her without notice in September. She now suffers from back pain and has not and she has not been able to work since being let go.
Others told me similar stories. One injured a shoulder while trying to unstick a vacuum cord while cleaning a warehouse. Her employer failed to tell her she could get state Workman’s Compensation, and only received payment after contacting a lawyer. Another faced a work speed-up after asking for a raise, ultimately being forced to quit.
The legislation will help, but is limited by being adopted on a state-by-state basis and without real reform of an immigration system designed to turn migrants into cheap labor — to work in homes, cut lawns, staff warehouses, and work on farms and in food processing plants. Immigrants will continue to stream in to the United States, fleeing war, gang violence, environmental collapse, and massive economic uncertainty. Businesses are only too glad to hire them at bargain rates, knowing they can be bullied — even when there are protections on the books. If we want to address these vulnerabilities, we have to fix immigration, have to legalize the status of the people doing so much of the necessary work, and provide them a pathway to citizenship.