City redoubling outreach to care, domestic workers

Under a federal administration that’s battled unions and stripped rights away from immigrants, domestic and care workers find themselves under attack from multiple different directions. 

Because of increased fear of detention and deportation, immigrant workers have been less likely to speak up when their rights are violated by their employer, Namrata Pradhan a senior organizer with Adhikaar, a worker center supporting the Nepali-speaking community, told The Chief. "They are scared. Because of this administration, people are scared,” she said.  

In order to counteract federal headwinds and provide these workers with support, the city has attempted to step in and provide training, help and encouragement to paid domestic and care workers. This month, Pradhan, who had worked as a domestic worker for over a decade before she became a full-time organizer, joined dozens of domestic and care workers at a Queens Public Library branch in Long Island City for a Paid Care Worker Convening organized by the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. 

Dozens of workers and organizers from the Carroll Gardens Nanny Association, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Damayan, Mixteca, Adhikaar, Workers Justice Project and more attended the convening that gave workers a chance to air their grievances, ask questions of city officials and connect with resources. Workers were encouraged by city officials to come forward with their complaints about their employers, and sought to inform workers about their rights under city law.

Sam Levine, the commissioner of DCWP, told The Chief after one presentation that domestic and care workers throughout the country are often isolated and lack protections, but in New York City, workers have won crucial rights that need to be upheld. 

"We wouldn’t have many of these rights if it weren’t for the domestic workers in this room,” he said. “They fought to have these rights. It’s our job to actually make sure they can benefit from these rights and realize these rights." 

City staffers who presented at the convening encouraged workers to speak out when their bosses violate city law, and highlighted a new expansion of the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act that was passed by the City Council last year.  

Under the expansion, which Levine and Mayor Zohran Mamdani touted when it came into effect in February, all employers must offer workers 32 hours of unpaid leave each year. The law adds more situations under which 3 million workers in the city’s private sector, including domestic and care workers, can use their paid leave, including to attend housing or public benefits hearings, act as a caregiver or support their child’s education. 

The bill's sponsor — Council Member Sandy Nurse — said in a statement she commends the Mamdani administration for ensuring that workers know their rights.

“My bill delivers 32 new hours of protected time off to over 4 million New Yorkers, including domestic and care workers who were forced to choose between their health and their paycheck," she said. "No one should ever have to make that choice. These workers showed up for this city every single day, and now this city is showing up for them."

'Most important workers in our economy'

DCWP has taken an active role in enforcing the paid time off expansion, and the convenings like the one held earlier this month are a key part of outreach. 

The city’s first-ever Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su said that, like Levine, she sees upholding the rights for workers in New York as one of her key responsibilities. 

"Domestic workers and caregivers are some of the most important workers in our economy,” she said. "But oftentimes their rights are not recognized in the same way, even when other workers' rights are expanded, and I think that is not by accident because this is a workforce that is largely immigrant; it's women and it's women of color who do the backbreaking work but often are not recognized and protected."  

"But in New York City we're writing a different story,” she said. 

Pradhan, the Adhikaar organizer, said the attendees of the convening were reflective of the broad coalition that works together to protect care and domestic workers. 

"The things that are happening are not okay,” she insisted. “So we have to speak up."