Coffee, food, and retail workers across Seattle may have plans this weekend. That's because Sunday July 1st marks the one-year anniversary of the day the city's landmark secure scheduling law took effect — and thanks to the law, workers know when they're going to work, and how many hours they're going to get.
Read MoreDomestic workers break down doors with landmark Bill of Rights to be introduced Thursday by Councilmember Mosqueda
Nannies, house cleaners, and other domestic workers in Seattle are breaking down doors to win higher standards and a voice at work. City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda will introduce a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in committee Thursday which will take domestic workers from invisible to powerful.
Read MoreFair Work Center and Working Washington announce strategic alignment
Fair Work Center and Working Washington are coming together to build a powerful, sustainable and scalable worker organization to advance worker and economic justice in Washington and beyond; new Executive Director hired to lead both organizations in building lasting power for workers
Read MoreThe case for Amazon to be prosecuted for Class B felony of intimidating a public servant (RCW 9A.76.180)
Amazon has a clear interest in using this type of threat to intimidate both the current and future locations of its corporate offices to extract additional funds and other economic concessions from them. This is the well-known criminal logic of a mob boss. The clumsy nature of Amazon’s attempted power play may make it less politically effective, but it does not make it less criminal.
Read More“You need to treat them like they’re a human being”: 2 new research reports indicate how workers — and businesses — can benefit from secure scheduling
Together, two new reports out this week — the Seattle scheduling “baseline” report and the Gap "stable scheduling" study — show the extent of scheduling issues workers face, and the potential for policy change to have a positive impact on workers, their families, their communities... and the businesses where they work. As one manager is quoted: “If you want to have a well functioning team... you need to treat them like they’re a human being.”
Towards a different kind of “Home Equity”: Seattle domestic workers issue new report after building diaper/glove display, sharing their stories, and calling for change at City Hall
Nannies and house cleaners bring their campaign to center stage at City Hall today
Release “Home Equity” research report after assembling diaper/glove display, and speaking before City Council committee on need for Domestic Workers Bill of Rights
Nannies, house cleaners, and other Seattle domestic workers took a major step from invisible to powerful today, bringing a different kind of “Home Equity” to the top of Seattle’s political agenda today. First, workers assembled a large-scale display of diapers and gloves at City Hall, representing each of the housecleaners and nannies in the Seattle area — one diaper for each nanny in the Seattle area (about 8,000), one glove-finger for each house cleaner (about 7,000).
Photos of the event are available here.Photos of the event are available here.
Now the Seattle Domestic Workers Alliance is issuing a new report: “Home Equity: Inequality and Exclusions Facing Domestic Workers in Seattle”, which analyzes community-based survey data and other research detailing the conditions faced by domestic workers in Seattle, and recommends a path forward for change.
Key findings of the Home Equity report include:
- There are approximately 8,000 people who work as nannies and 7,000 who work as house cleaners in Seattle. However, data is sparse, the work is all-too-often invisible, and there is great need for additional community-based research.
- Half of the domestic workers surveyed do not receive overtime pay, four in ten do not receive paid sick days, and 85% do not receive workers’ compensation benefits if they are injured at work.
- More than one in three surveyed workers are paid in cash, and less than half have a written contract. Almost nine in ten surveyed domestic workers of color do not have written contracts.
- Sixteen percent of surveyed workers who raised concerns about working conditions report facing retaliation from their employers.
The full report can be downloaded here (PDF).
Nannies, house cleaners, and other domestic workers in Seattle are coming together to make sure they get the same basic rights and benefits every worker needs. That includes the city establishing a structure that allows workers and employers to come together to set standards that support workers’ health and well-being.
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Contact: Sage Wilson, Working Washington: sage@workingwa.org
Working Washington is the voice for workers in our state. Working Washington fast food strikers sparked the fight that won Seattle’s first-in-the-nation $15 minimum wage. Working Washington baristas and fast food workers led the successful campaign for secure scheduling in Seattle, and our members across the state helped drive forward Initiative 1433 to raise the minimum wage and provide paid sick days. We successfully drove Amazon to sever ties with the right-wing lobby group ALEC and improve conditions in their sweatshop warehouses, and got Starbucks to address inequities in their corporate parental leave policy. And we made history once again with the landmark statewide paid family leave law passed last year. For more information, including our press kit, visit workingWA.org.
Nannies & house cleaners to bring thousands of diapers and gloves to Seattle City Hall
Nannies & house cleaners with the Seattle Domestic Workers Alliance will assemble a large-scale display of thousands of diapers and gloves Thursday morning outside Seattle City Hall, each representing one of the thousands of domestic workers in the Seattle area. Then they’ll attend a meeting of the City Council's Housing, Health, Energy & Workers' Rights committee to share their experiences and call for change through a citywide Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.
Read MoreStatement from Working Washington in response the lawsuit by Alaska Air & the airline industry attempting to overturn Washington’s paid sick time law.
Aches on a plane.
Read MoreOfficial statement from Working Washington in response to the news that Starbucks is expanding its paid family leave program to cover more store employees
The following statement can be attributed to Working Washington:
“Baristas did it, not tax cuts.”
THURSDAY: Domestic workers to kick-off campaign for citywide Bill of Rights
Key city councilmembers to attend as nannies and housecleaners launch Seattle Domestic Workers Alliance, kick-off campaign to raise standards in industry
Nannies, house cleaners and other domestic workers from across the city will gather Thursday evening to launch the Seattle Domestic Workers Alliance. Joined by several key City Councilmembers, they’ll kick off their campaign for a citywide Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights which:
- Ensures all domestic workers are covered by all our basic workers’ rights laws.
- Guarantees written employment contracts for all domestic workers.
- Establishes an official city commission which includes domestic workers and has the power to set legally-binding industry standards on wages, benefits, and working conditions.
Who: Nannies, housecleaners, cash paid homecare aides, and other members of the Seattle Domestic Workers Alliance, joined by City Councilmembers Lorena González, Lisa Herbold, and Teresa Mosqueda.
What: Campaign kick-off for a Seattle Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights. Domestic workers will launch the Seattle Domestic Workers Alliance, share their stories, and call for change. Several city councilmembers and a representative of the mayor’s office will attend to offer brief remarks.
Where: Auditorium at 719 3rd Avenue in downtown Seattle, between Cherry & Columbia.
When: 6:30 pm, Thursday, December 7, 2017. Contact Sage Wilson at Working Washington at sage@workingwa.org if you would like to arrange an interview in advance of Thursday evening.
Currently, thousands of nannies, house cleaners, cash paid home care aides, and other domestic workers in Seattle don’t get the full protections of our workers’ rights laws. Few have access to basic benefits like healthcare and retirement. Some types of domestic workers are specifically excluded from the laws that provide these rights and benefits, and for many others the rights spelled out in the law simply aren’t realities on the job. Seattle domestic workers are calling for a Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights that will raise standards and address the inequities faced by a workforce that's mostly women and disproportionately people of color.
Thursday’s kick-off comes after months of organizing and outreach. Nannies raised these issues at several mayoral debates this summer, and as a candidate for office, Mayor Durkan repeatedly stated the need for a Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights, and the importance of enforcing labor standards for all workers. Her campaign later issued a policy paper promising that a Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights would be a top priority. In the week before the election, nannies and house cleaners leading the Seattle Domestic Workers Alliance met with Mayor Durkan, and she signed on in commitment to work with them to pass a Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights during her first year in office.
The Seattle Domestic Workers Alliance (SDWA) unites nannies, house cleaners, and other domestic workers across Seattle. Workers have established SDWA a project of Working Washington, with support from Casa Latina, SEIU 775, and the National Domestic Workers Alliance.
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Contact: Sage Wilson, Working Washington: sage@workingwa.org
Working Washington is the voice for workers in our state. Working Washington fast food strikers sparked the fight that won Seattle’s first-in-the-nation $15 minimum wage. Working Washington baristas and fast food workers led the successful campaign for secure scheduling in Seattle, and our members across the state helped drive forward Initiative 1433 to raise the minimum wage and provide paid sick days. We successfully drove Amazon to sever ties with the right-wing lobby group ALEC and improve conditions in their sweatshop warehouses, and got Starbucks to address inequities in their corporate parental leave policy. And we made history once again with the landmark statewide paid family leave law passed earlier this year. For more information, including our press kit, visit workingWA.org.