(crowd chanting) Se ve, se siente.

Las trabajadoras están presente.

Si se puede, si se puede.

Vamos gobernador, estamos aquí p que y que escuchen los legislado que nos vetaste por que crees tú no somes indispensables.

(bright gentle music) (people cheering) (bright gentle music) (people cheering) (bright gentle music) (soft music) Mi nombre es Mirna Arana, tengo 33 años y soy de Guatemala Trabajo en Guatemala no hay y está muy peligroso.

mi familia ha sido extorsionada y la han asesinado a mis primos y por eso yo decidí venirme para Yo llegué a Estados Unidos hace Yo pensé que si había mucho trab pero me encontré de que lastimos hay veces que venimos llegando de nuestro país, hay personas que nos tratan como una forma inhumanas en el trabaj No pensé que aquí me iban a robar el salario.

Pensé que, lo justo, ¿verdad?

Que iba yo a estar recibiendo mi cheque como yo limpiaba porque yo miraba que yo estaba muy cansada limpiando mucho y yo así pensaba que así iba a ser mi cheque, pero a la hora de recibir mi dinero, este, mi tristeza era mucho y yo me ponía a llorar y de estar mirando que yo estaba saliendo muy noche de trabajar y no más me pagaban seis horas y eso no era y, no podía decir yo nada porque ellos me despedían.

(gentle music) - My name is Kimberly Alvarenga, and I'm the Director at the California Domestic Workers Coalition.

Our mission is to advance the dignity and the rights of domestic workers.

We're a member-led coalition and we achieve our goal through leadership development, grassroots organizing, and policy advocacy.

There's a long history of exclusion of domestic workers from basic labor laws.

In the 1930s when we were debating landmark policies such as the National Labor Relations Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act, there were members of Congress that were from the South that refused to support these policies unless domestic workers and farm workers were excluded at the time.

It so happened that at the time, those workers happened to be black workers.

And so there's a long legacy of enslavement and racism.

It's been over 80 years.

And so it's about time that we end this racist exclusion from basic laws and protections.

(protestors chant) - ¿Esperen ellos a que nosotros continuemos arriesgando nuestras vidas?

¿Que tal nuestras familias que dependen de nosotras?

Trabajamos muy duro por esa ley.

Pasamos todas las instancias y cuando estuvo en su mesa el gobernador se negó a firmar porque dice que nosotros no calificamos para tener protección de salud y seguridad.

Lo único que queremos es tener salud, seguridad, para poder trabajar bien en sus casas.

Gracias a nosotros, ellos pueden salir a sus trabajos.

Si no tuvieran, ¿quién les cuidaria a sus hijos?

¿Quién cuidaria a su casa?

¿Quién limpiaría a sus hogares?

(mellow music) (background voice) - A lot of the issues, which are not said very publicly because there is no organized opposition to the bill.

So it's usually, well, this is the privacy of my home.

I don't want an inspector coming into my home unannounced.

Invasion of privacy, so it's things like that which really are old arguments.

They're very old arguments.

They still go back to the days of slavery as if the domestic worker was someone's property.

- So, Governor Newsom vetoed SB 1257 at the end of September.

Our membership in December got back together and decided that they wanted to reintroduce the bill.

And so in 2021, we introduced SB 321, again, the Health and Safety for All Workers Act.

- More than ever, domestic workers urgently need health and safety rights.

Home care workers, without having the right to know if their clients are COVID-19 positive or not, are still caring for elders in our communities.

(chanting) (horn sound) (chanting) - Pass SB 321 for healthy and safety protection (protest song) - This movement came directly from domestic workers.

In 2020, there were domestic workers that we were hearing, in the middle of wildfires were being asked in mandatory evacuation zones to head up to fires, to clean homes that had been burned down, that were full of toxic ash, and they were becoming sick.

And it was in that moment when COVID-19 hit.

And we also started to see the impact of the pandemic on our members.

And in the middle of this pandemic, when domestic workers are being devastated as essential workers and they are feeling the health impacts and the economic impacts of COVID, to not provide them basic human rights in the middle of this pandemic, is just unbearable.

(soft music) - I'm Irva Hertz-Picciotto and I'm the Director of the University of California, Davis, Environmental Health Sciences Center.

During the pandemic, we were hearing how frequently it was that clusters of cases of COVID were happening right around the workplace, raising issues about workplace conditions.

The domestic workers were of particular interest because they don't have the kinds of rights that most workers have.

Basically they are excluded from the regulations of OSHA.

In a way domestic workers are invisible.

They're hidden away in homes.

So we put together a survey, specifically for domestic workers, and we worked together with the California Domestic Workers Coalition to do that.

And they also helped to distribute it to their members.

When we looked at the data, the results were a bit alarming.

77% of the respondents to the survey reported that they had experienced an employer who had not provided any type of mask for them.

In addition, domestic workers were three times as likely to report that they had been told by a physician that they had COVID-19, as compared to Californians as a whole.

Besides the obvious health consequences of COVID-19, we also all know about the enormous economic burden that this pandemic has brought, particularly for low income people.

And the domestic workers were no exception.

The disparities are quite great.

About 36% of the domestic workers lost all of their jobs, meaning they had zero money coming in.

What I'm hoping for is that this report shines a bit of a spotlight on the problem and the needs of domestic workers for health and safety protections on the job.

(gentle music) Ese día yo trabajé de las 06:00 hasta las, como 10, 11 de la noche levantando cajas pesadas y levantando muebles porque los inquilinos estaban desalojando y tenía que estar haciendo una limpiezo profunda.

Y yo sentía muy fuerte dolores y yo dije a mi empleador que por favor me dejara salir a las 17:00 porque yo sentía mucho dolor.

Y él dijo "No, pues aquí vinieron a trabajar, y Uds.

¿Por qué no quieren trabajar?"

Y él estaba super enojado, y yo con miedo de que me iban a despedir y dije estando embarazada yo ahorita necesito trabajar para ahorrar más, para para mi bebé.

Y entonces yo me sentí obligada quedarme ahí, a terminar y estando llevando la vacuum yo me sentía como más mal y con un fuerte dolor en mi vientre y en la espalda y decidí quedarme ahí a terminar de trabajar.

Pero yo llegué sangrando a la casa y ya fui a las 05:00 al hospital a la sala de emergencia.

Pero en lo que me iban a atender ya fue demasiado tarde.

Perdí a mi bebé.

Tuve un aborto espontáneo Me dijeron que era espontáneo, pero yo estoy segura que fue por las más de 16 horas de trabajo.

Después de que yo perdí a mi bebé les conté a mis empleadores, pero dijeron que esta fue mi culpa.

Y este... no más.

así.

Fue tu culpa y no dijeron nada más, que siguiera trabajando.

Y la doctora que me estaba atendiendo en mi primer embarazo yo le conté mi historia y ella me mandó a Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA), y ahí fue donde yo pude conocer mis derechos y lo que estaba pasando conmigo.

Yo vine a MUA porque ellos me apoyaron.

Y decidí quedarme ahí porque yo miré que cómo cómo habían mujeres que les ayudaban ahí.

Yo trabajé para esta campaña porque yo quiero que las trabajadoras estén incluidas en esta ley de Cal/OSHA y tengan protecciones, las que yo no tuve cuando yo necesitaba.

- Because we're still in the middle of COVID, we've continued to organize creatively.

We've done all of our lobby visits and meetings with legislators online via Zoom.

So our base got really creative and started to use their acting skills to convey the message to the administration.

Así que el Gobernador de California se preocupa por la salud durante la pandemia, ¡pero no se preocupa por la salud y seguridad de las trabajadoras de casa!

(drums and chanting) - We've been advocating really hard and creatively.

On the Senate side, we got through Senate labor committee, Senate judiciary committee, and also really escalated our presence in Sacramento.

(people cheering) Pinanawagan kami sayo Governor Newsom na ipasa ang SB 321!

(people singing) Sí, sí se puede Sí, sí, sí sí se puede... - ¡Sí se puede!

I don't know what the governor is gonna do.

I'm hopeful that he gives up when all these women around him keeps saying, "Sign this, sign this," that he'll do the right thing.

SB 321 is set to be voted on, on the floor of the state Senate sometime in this next week or so.

I'm very hopeful that we have the votes for it, but we just gotta keep at it.

- Colleagues, I ask for your aye vote.

Is there any discussion or debate on this item?

Seeing none, please call the roll.

- [Chair] Allen.

- [Allen] Aye.

- [Chair] Aye, Archuleta.

- [Archuleta] Aye.

- [Chair] Aye, Atkins.

- [Atkins] Aye.

- [Chair] Aye, Bates.

Ayes 30, no's 10, the measure passes.

(women cheering) ¡Sí se puede!

(rhythmic music) (dramatic reverb) - We met with the administration and the governor's office expressed the fact that they were not ready to repeal the exclusion for domestic workers at that time.

So we met with members, started to talk about what what potential steps that we could take to really bring dignity to these workers and avoid another veto in 2021.

So we worked with our committee and our members and developed an amendment proposal which the administration has agreed to.

The proposal was to create an advisory committee that would be made up of workers and employers to create voluntary guidelines for the domestic worker industry.

It was a hard decision.

The debates amongst membership and amongst our base, can be heated.

You know, people feel really strongly about their position, and in the long run our membership overall, a majority after taking the vote, decided that this amendment would be a first step in the right direction to ultimately give domestic workers the rights that they actually deserve.

It's a foot in the door that we're making at this point.

Internally we have seven organizations that get to vote, as a part of the steering committee, and the vote was five to two.

Nuestra visión era una ley desde el principio de la campaña por los años anteriores, y este y los dos años pasados estábamos "Una ley que cambie el sistema de las trabajadoras domésticas..." Que esto sea una ley, no sea un arreglo.

Y eso fue lo que sentí en ese momento y dijimos, "No, no, no tenemos claridad que es específicamente esto, vamos a votar que no, pero igual, si alguien tiene, y ya más detalladamente vamos formando, figurando todo esto..." Esto no nos va a causar un desacuerdo al nivel organización.

Finalmente entendimos que podría ser bueno, y seguimos unidas y estamos esperando que esto sí se llegue a hacer una ley.

Me siento decepcionada de no poder llegar hasta allí, para que seamos incluidas en Cal/OSHA completamente, pero, nos conformamos aunque sea, yo me conformo, aunque sea con este poquito va para mientras estamos siguiendo luchando.

(gentle music) - I'm personally, you know, very hurt and, you know, upset.

But as a legislator, I know that I have to go on.

And I made a commitment to the domestic workers that we're gonna keep working on this until we get what they deserve.

In my experience, as a labor organizer for decades, we didn't win everything we wanted the first time.

That doesn't mean we failed.

It just means that we want more and more and more as it should be.

And we push and we'd win something.

We'd push and we'd win more.

We'd push and we'd win more and more.

And that's just part of the struggle, the struggle on any issue, women's issues, LGBTQ issues, labor issues.

We always push hard and we win something and we push hard and we win more.

(gentle music) In response to the governor's veto prior legislation, we have amended our bill to create an advisory committee that will develop the guidelines, voluntary and educational guidelines, for protecting the health and safety of domestic service employees... - I'm devastated at the amendments that I know that you can't possibly have wanted to take, but I do understand the position we're in.

it is in some part shameful that a bill with no formal opposition, we can't convince folks that this is the time to really remove the vestiges of slavery that allow for us to mistreat domestic work.

(rhythmic music) ¡Bienvenidas, compañeras, a la celebración!

¡Ganamos!

¿Se pudo?

¡Sí se pudo!

(celebratory music) (women cheering) (baby coos) (gentle music) Mi nuevo bebé nació el 18 de diciembre y estoy bien feliz porque ha llegado ese día, que, cuando ... a mi me dijeron que yo iba a ten que aborté, me dieron esa fecha.

Ahora este mi bebé llega a los cuatro años a la misma fecha.

Y dije, "Ay éste es, qué bonito!

Y me siento muy feliz con mi niño, con los dos, porque tengo dos.

- ¡La lucha sigue!

I'm in awe of the resilience of our base and our members, and we're really excited about the future.

As we speak, we're working on the next campaign.

We're gonna be introducing an ordinance in San Francisco, creating and mandating the first-ever portable benefits paid time off mechanism for domestic workers in the city.

(mellow music) Yo me meto en esta lucha por el bien de mis hijos.

Voy a seguir luchando por ellos para darles una vida mejor y que sean unos buenos ciudadano y que se vayan a la universidad.

Ese es mi gran sueño.

Buenas tardes.

Soy Mirna Arana, trabajadora del hogar en San Francisco.

y lider de Mujeres Unidas y Activas.