Domestic workers push labor rights bill

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/bronx/2009/04/28/2009-04-28_domestic_workers_push_labor_rights_bill.html

By Patrice O'Shaughnessy [e-mail]

Tuesday, April 28th 2009, 4:00 AM

Tuesday, Ana Ontiveros will not make her usual daily trip from the Bronx to her job as a housekeeper in Manhattan. Instead, she'll take a day off without pay and board a bus to Albany with dozens of other housekeepers, nannies and maids to rally the state Legislature for a domestic workers' Bill of Rights.

"They expect a lot of people to come to Albany," said Ontiveros, 36. "The farm workers are coming with us, and students who support us."

She said she has a good job, cleaning for a family, and sometimes baby-sitting if the nanny isn't there.


Showalter for News
Members of the Domestic Workers Justice Coalition, a group that works to organize several domestic worker unions, held a rally Saturday, March 4th, 2009.


But she doesn't get sick days or overtime or medical benefits. She works 10 hours a day, for $12.50 an hour.

She has never been physically abused by employers, but she said, "I hear a lot of stories about people abusing workers, or they don't pay them, or fire them for no reason."

In 2007, she was part of a group of workers who went to the Long Island courthouse, where a wealthy couple was tried and convicted of beating and enslaving their housemaid, one of the most egregious cases to come to light in this nation.

FULL story at link.

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