This year has been filled with many activities, from the expansion of our coalition team, engaging in advocacy efforts with our healthcare access and disability rights allies, to continuing to monitor the enforcement of the Bill of Rights. We’ve been hard at work and we want to share it all with you!
In May we welcomed two new staff members to the coalition, Sarah Leadem as the Membership Coordinator and Blanca Vazquez as our Campaign Consultant. We’re very excited to have these two ferocious and committed leaders as part of our team, expanding our work to protect the rights of domestic workers across California.
Earlier this summer we participated in the12th Annual Disability Capitol Action Day in Sacramento, where our members joined in celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) and learned more about the disability rights movement. It was so empowering for us to join this effort and acknowledge that “Disability Rights are Domestic Worker Rights!”.
More recently, as part of the Bay Area Care Council, we also joined the national celebration of Medicare’s 50th Anniversary. In the bay area alone, as many as 800 people joined in celebration in the front steps of Oakland City Hall to uphold the need to Protect, Improve and Expand Medicare. It was an amazing experience, filled with revitalizing speakers such as Tom Ammiano (author of the Bill of Rights), Dolores Huerta and our very own steering committee member, Guillermina Castellanos! You can check out some of pictures from this day HERE
The summer is not over and our work is escalating! Next week, on August 12th, we’ll be launching the Bay Area’s Fall Organizing Drive with plans to launch a parallel drive in Los Angeles at the end of August. This is part of a statewide organizing drive to reach out to California's 200,000+ private domestic workers in the movement to win Dignity in the Home and raise the industry standard for domestic work. Our worker leaders will be doing a full day of outreach focused on nannies, housecleaners and caregivers.
Our goal is to educate domestic workers about their labor rights and continue to build our base of domestic workers to realize our vision of organizing 10% of California’s domestic work industry. We know the key to ensuring dignity and justice for domestic workers stems from a powerful base of domestic worker leaders in partnership with their allies!
Stay tuned for updates from the frontlines of domestic worker outreach teams and learn about our plans to advance the movement for Dignity in the Home in 2015 and beyond!
To stay updated with us you can follow us via social media. Don't forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!
Be sure to follow these hashtags:#domesticworkers #DWdignityCA #dignityinthehome
We’ll be posting pictures and live updates from the organizing drive next week.
In Solidarity,
Katie Joaquin, Campaign Director
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