Shame in New York

When I talk to someone about LABOR JUSTICE, and about the farm workers and domestics who are being abused by the current system, I tend to think about growers and farm workers in Southern California. Although I want to help, it often seems like a faraway battle, in which I can only play a remote role from my Brooklyn apartment. This idea, however, that I am so far removed from the struggle, could not be more wrong. The nannies, housekeepers, maids, care-givers and other domestic workers, who can be found throughout the city, but are especially prevalent in the wealthy enclaves of the Upper East and Upper West sides of Manhattan, are another abused minority that society has ignored for far too long.

The Nation has a great read by Lizzy Ratner documenting a disturbing sampling of the abuse these workers endure. Even though I understand these things happen, I was shocked when I read of workers being beaten, ashamed when I read of their pay being withheld, and sickened when I read of some being held against their will. Ratner tells one story of “a Jamaican housekeeper and nanny who was brought to this country by an electronics executive and his family at age 15 and held in latter-day servitude. For fifteen years, she raised their three kids and never received a salary because she was told that her mother was getting her checks. But the checks were never sent, and her employers gradually cut off her communication with her family.” This is certainly not the “average” situation, but it is also not an isolated occurrence.

Although Ratner’s focus is on the plight of domestic workers in New York, and their fight to push the State Legislature to pass a Domestic Worker’s Bill of Rights, the abuse documented in this article is symptomatic of a larger, shaming, nation-wide problem. The abuse of these workers is not a simple case of a few bad employers. This is what Leroy calls the “Last vestige of Slavery.” This is systematic and institutionalized abuse, that has been sanctioned by the Government and by society through years of neglect and ambivalence. It is great that the New York Senate is poised to make the changes outlined by Ratner. But until we make them on a national level, for all farm workers and domestics, we can not have an honest discussion about equality and justice in this county. As State Senator Diane Savino said in Ratner’s article, we are simply fighting to give these workers “….some dignity in their work life, a real degree of enforcement for them, and a change in the discussion of how domestic workers should be treated.” This isn’t rocket science.