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USA: Low Benefits, Temporary Jobs - Work Is Getting Worse...But Hope for Labor Rights Is Emerging from a Surprising Place

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by IDWFED published Aug 28, 2012 12:00 AM
Contributors: Sarah Jaffe | AlterNet
A special Labor Day interview with domestic workers organizer Ai-Jen Poo, one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of 2012.

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Read the original article in full: Low Benefits, Temporary Jobs -- Work Is Getting Worse ... But Hope for Labor Rights Is Emerging from a Surprising Place | Alternet

A special Labor Day interview with domestic workers organizer Ai-Jen Poo, the director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), which is an affiliate of the IDWN. She was chosen one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of 2012 for her work organizing domestic workers around the country. She sat down with AlterNet to discuss the changing 21st-century workplace, the campaign for paid sick days for workers, the ways women are leading some of the most exciting labor organizing out there, and NDWA's Caring Across Generations campaign to create good jobs while making our economy a more caring place.

Here are some highlights from the interview:

Sarah Jaffe:
How do you define "domestic workers" and the work they do?

Ai-Jen Poo:
We call domestic work the work that makes all other work possible. It’s the work that goes into caring for homes and families across generations, and it’s traditionally been done by women. As a paid form of work, it’s often by done by immigrant women or women of color. Society has devalued that work over time, and we think that that has a lot to do with who’s done the work. The categories of workers are nannies, housekeepers, babysitters, cooks, cleaners, caregivers for the elderly. It’s really anybody who either takes care of or supports somebody else in their lives through work that’s done in the home.

SJ:
You make the point that this work is devalued because of who does it. Immigrant women wind up responsible for other people's families, which creates what Arlie Russell Hochschild called a "care drain." Can you speak to that a little bit?

AJP:
The work that goes into caring for families and homes is necessary work. There’s no way around it. So it has to get done, and historically, it was women within a particular household who were responsible for that work. As the world of work has shifted and more and more women have entered the public workforce, that work still has to get done, and it’s still done predominantly by women. But now, a larger and larger share of that work is done by paid workers who are doing it for both their own families and homes and for the homes of the employers they work for.

And on top of that......

Source: Sarah Jaffe/AlterNet

Story Type: News

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