When she first started working as an au pair, Edy Dominguez earned less than the minimum wage and went without paid sick time or overtime pay for extra-long weeks.
That’s because domestic workers, including nannies, housekeepers and home health workers, have historically been excluded from the basic labor protections most workers enjoy.
“There are standards in every other industry,” she said. “Why not us?”
After a decade of domestic work, Dominguez became an organizer for the Fair Work Center, a labor advocacy group in Washington state that won a victory in 2019 when Seattle implemented an ordinance guaranteeing minimum wage, meal periods and paid rest breaks for domestic workers. Now, advocates are pushing for new statewide legislation that would ensure minimum wage and sick time and require written agreements between employers and workers.
“I know what it is to be unprotected and alone in this industry,” Dominguez said. “There’s no co-workers.”
If advocates are successful, Washington would join a dozen Democratic-leaning states and several cities that have added new protections for domestic workers. Efforts in those places did not face widespread opposition, though they raised some concerns about privacy and overregulation of workers in private homes.
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