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

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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:

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  • 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.