Domestic Workers United

Domestic Workers United is a membership-based organization that came into being in 2000, leading a passionate struggle for basic human rights. DWU engages domestic workers in strategic organizing campaigns to secure the kind of labor rights that are a baseline standard for the majority of this nation’s labor force. These standards, which include a 40-hour workweek, paid sick and vacation leave, safe working conditions and fair wages, have been denied to domestic workers. Domestic workers have been excluded from labor protections, rights and recognition as a real workforce for over seven decades.

In 2010, after ten years of ten years of base-building and six years of active campaigning, domestic workers and their allies were able to pass the New York State Domestic Workers Bill of Rights – the first of its kind in the US. This incredible campaign and historic win are now the framework for a national movement to gain basic labor rights for domestic workers: the nannies, housecleaners and elder care providers whose work makes all other work possible.