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Book Review Of: Blackett, A. (2019). Everyday Transgressions: Domestic Workers’ Transnational Challenge To International Labor Law, Hina B. Shah

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Everyday Transgressions: Domestic Workers’ Transnational Challenge to International Labor Law. A. Blackett (2019). Everyday Transgressions: Domestic Workers’ Transnational Challenge to International Labor Law. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press, an Imprint of Cornell University Press. 287 pp. $23.95 (paper).

Reviewed by: Hina B. Shah, Women’s Employment Rights Clinic, Golden Gate University, San Francisco, CA, USA

One in every twenty-five women workers worldwide is a domestic worker. They are largely invisible, undervalued, and lack the most basic labor protections. Professor Blackett’s book, Everyday Transgressions, tackles this invisibility head on and provides a much-needed conceptual framing that lays bare the inequities faced by domestic …

Notes From The Field: The Role Of The Lawyer In Grassroots Policy Advocacy, Hina B. Shah

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In the past decade, domestic workers have built a national, grassroots, worker-led movement to address the systemic exclusion of domestic workers from basic wage and hour laws. They have been widely successful in the last three years with the passage of a state domestic worker bill of rights in several states, the adoption by the International Labour Organization of the Convention and Recommendation Concerning Decent Work for Domestic Workers, and federal policy changes by the Department of Labor. Building visibility through worker leadership and broad-based coalitions, the domestic work campaigns have succeeded in gaining fairer treatment under the law. Behind …

Grassroots Policy Advocacy And The California Domestic Worker Bill Of Rights, Hina Shah

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Recent victories in domestic workers rights are a result of grassroots, worker-led campaigns to change the cultural value of domestic work and fundamentally question why the law treats these workers differently from other workers. Building visibility through worker leadership and broad-based coalitions, the domestic work campaigns have succeeded in gaining more equal treatment under the law. This is the story of the California campaign and the Golden Gate University Women’s Employment Rights Clinic’s role in the campaign.

Finally, Overtime Coverage For All Domestic Workers In California!, Hina B. Shah

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After nearly 75 years of exclusion from federal and state labor protections, domestic workers have finally scored two important victories in their fight for equal treatment. Late last week, Governor Brown signed AB 241, extending California overtime protections to domestic workers who spend a significant amount of time caring for children, elderly and people with disabilities. One week earlier the federal Department of Labor finalized new rules that significantly extend federal minimum wage and overtime protections to domestic workers who care for the elderly and people with disabilities. Together, these actions extend overtime coverage to all domestic workers in California.

Domestic Worker Organizing: Building A Contemporary Movement For Dignity And Power, Hina Shah, Marci Seville

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The success of domestic worker organizing in the twenty-first century may seem like an anomaly against the backdrop of increased hostility towards unionized labor and an overall decline in wages and benefits for workers. The contemporary domestic worker movement, beginning in the 1990s, builds upon centuries of organizing and agitation by domestic workers and others for a cultural shift that values domestic labor as real work. The current movement fundamentally alters past organizing models, linking the struggle to a broader movement for social justice. Unlike past organizing efforts, domestic workers are at the helm of the contemporary movement. They have …