Archive
care work
Domestic Work, Migration and Gender
Recorded Mar 9, 2011
This forum, organized by DAMAYAN Migrant Workers Association and co-sponsored by the Barnard Center for Research on Women, Barnard Women's Studies, and the National Domestic Workers Alliance, engages scholars, policy advocates, activists, and allies about the situation of immigrant women domestic workers with the Philippines as a case study. The forum is moderated by Leah Obias, and introduced by Catherine Sameh, and the list of speakers and topics includes: Neferti Tadiar, Professor and Chair of Women's Studies at Barnard College, discussing globalization, migration and domestic work; Alexa Kasdan, Director of Research and Policy at the Community Development Project of the Urban Justice Center, discussing community participatory research and organizing work; Cecille Venzon, Member of the Board of Directors of DAMAYAN, giving a worker's testimonial; Terri Nilliasca, Activist and Student at CUNY Law Center, discussing power dynamics at the domestic workplace and the intersections of race, class, gender and immigration; and Linda Oalican, Program Coordinator of DAMAYAN, offering concluding remarks on building a comprehensive migrant domestic workers movement.
ListenThe Labor of Care: Rethinking Gender, Work, and Rights in the American Welfare State
Jennifer Klein '89
Once considered economically marginal, jobs in nursing, home health care, and childcare have moved to the center of the economy. In this year’s Women’s History Month lecture, Jennifer Klein ’89 will reconsider the history of the American welfare state from the perspective of care work. What will define work, rights, security, and dignity amid the […]
Read MoreValuing Domestic Work
Premilla Nadasen and Tiffany Wiliams
Domestic work—the daily maintenance of households and the labor of caring for children and other dependents—is crucial work. It enables workers to go out into the world, reproduces a new generation of workers and citizens, and sustains relationships among parents, children and families. And yet, it is devalued, degraded and made invisible. Its degradation and invisibility are produced through processes of gendering that naturalize domestic and caring labors as women's work, and racialization that naturalize low-wage, "dirty" jobs as the work of people of color and immigrants. As laborers doing devalued work, domestic workers receive neither adequate wages nor any of the other legal protections many US workers have—sick leave, time off, and collective bargaining. In New York and nationally, workers have organized for better wages, humane treatment and the right to legal protections that cover other US workers.
Read MoreValuing Domestic Work
Gisela Fosado and Janet R. Jakobsen
Contributors include Eileen Boris, Christine E. Bose, Arlie Russell Hochschild, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, Jennifer Klein, Wendy Kozol, Pei-Chia Lan, Premilla Nadasen, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Leah Obias, Ai-jen Poo, Saskia Sassen, Third World Newsreel, and Basia Winograd.
Read MoreWomen and Work: Building Solidarity with America’s Vulnerable Workers
National Domestic Workers Alliance
Last year, BCRW hosted the first National Domestic Workers Alliance conference, bringing together domestic workers from across the country to develop a national agenda, and to discuss how best to educate the public and strategize to achieve fair labor standards for domestic workers, including a living wage, basic benefits, and health care. This year, we […]
Read MoreThe Political and Social Economy of Care
UNRISD (United Nations Research Institute for Social Development) Conference: This conference is free and open to the public. All are welcome. Opening Remarks and Keynote Addresses(9:00-11:00) Joan Tronto, Hunter College and City University of New York Elizabeth Jelin, CONICET, University of Buenos Aires Shahra Razavi, UNRISD Session 1: State Responses to Social Change (11:00-12:50) Mary […]
Read MoreNational Domestic Workers Alliance Conference
This June, BCRW joins Domestic Workers United in their educational efforts on fair labor standards for domestic workers in New York, including a living wage, basic benefits and health care. The first National Domestic Workers Alliance conference brings organizations from across the country together to discuss how best to protect the 200,000 domestic workers in […]
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