DWU

JOB ANNOUNCEMENT- Domestic Workers United ** Posted February, 2012. This is a revised version of a previous announcement ** Job title: Development Director Term: Full-time with at least 1-year commitment Salary: ,000-,000, plus benefits Application deadline: Open until Filled Background: Around the world, domestic workers are building a powerful movement for change, breaking the silence of a previously invisible workforce, and making the fundamental demand that all work be treated with justice and dignity. Domestic workers are winning important victories, including the 2011 passage of the ILO Convention on the Rights of Domestic Workers, state-level Domestic Workers’ Bills of Rights, and shifts in national labor law. While the movement addresses the legacy of slavery and the devaluation of women’s work, it simultaneously builds a new culture that highlights the interconnectedness of many movements, and that places deep value on networks of care and mutual...

Making Change, by Amanda Robb. Excerpted from the Fall 2011 issue of Ms. Even though Anika Rahman has lived in the United States more than 20 years, the Bangladeshi native can still be stunned by gender inequities in “the land of the free.” There’s that persistent wage gap, for example, that has U.S. women earning 77 cents to a man’s dollar, with African American women making significantly less and Latinas less still. And then there’s the treatment of U.S. domestic workers, who are explicitly excluded from federal rules written to protect virtually all other wage earners. But the Ms. Foundation for Women, the philanthropy where Rahman serves as CEO and president, helps to fight such inequality. One recent victory: New York state’s nannies, housekeepers and other domestic workers have now been granted minimal employment guarantees—overtime after 40 hours of work a week, one day off every week, three paid days off a year and protection from harassment. And...

Domestic Workers Say No to Keystone XL contacts: DWU: dwuinfo@domesticworkersunited.org NDWA: mariana@domesticworkers.org The National Domestic Workers Alliance and the NY State-based Domestic Workers United today declared their opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, and urged the State Department to deny approval of the project. The domestic workers' statement noted, "Many of our members come to the U.S. from countries already severely impacted by climate change and environmental devastation. If approved and constructed, the Keystone XL pipeline will have a huge impact on our communities, on First Nation communities, on global greenhouse gas emissions, and risks major contamination of the largest freshwater aquifer in North America." The statement follows President Obama's November 2 statement on Keystone XL, when he announced that Nebraskans and the American people are not going to “take a few thousand jobs if it means that our kids are potentially drinking...