Why I fought for paid sick depart for San Francisco’s home staff

By Kimberly Alvarenga

Special for the examiner

As a child, I have vivid memories of my mother who worked as a domestic maid in San Francisco to help us lead a better life. Every day she left the house early in the morning while it was still dark. I can still see her silhouette slowly moving to try to catch the 14 mission bus.

I remember being the first child to be dropped off at school and sitting alone on a bench because they had to go to work before their employers went to their own jobs. She was a single mother and, like many women who immigrated here, looked after the elderly or other people’s children.

She never took a day off to take care of me. She even worked when she was sick and her bones ached because when she wasn’t working she wasn’t paid and couldn’t put food on our table.

Thousands of workers still experience similar conditions in The City today. Many labor laws fail to address the specific needs of this industry, so making changes to domestic workers often takes a long and consistent effort to gain new rights and bring those rights to life in their lives.

The road to winning the San Francisco Access To Paid Sick Leave Ordinance recently passed by the board of directors is no exception.

Domestic workers have been excluded from many basic health and safety measures in the past. These exclusions are deeply rooted in the long tradition of slavery and racism against black people in our country. Domestic workers, who were primarily a black workforce, were deliberately excluded from labor laws when they were first drafted in the early 20th century. As a result, the domestic worker industry remains largely unregulated and excluded from the protection that other workers enjoy.

The effects of these exclusions can still be seen in how this workforce remains invisible when the legislature is legislating. The uniqueness of the domestic worker industry, such as working for multiple individual employers and behind closed doors, can further marginalize workers and make it more difficult to address violations and needs compared to other workplaces.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear that the health of domestic workers must be a priority. They were among the key workers who continued their jobs on the front lines of the pandemic. Domestic workers kept going to work caring for those most at risk from the virus with no health and safety protection, no access to paid sick leave, and no economic safety net when they got sick. Many could not take the time to support sick and dying family members as their communities were among the hardest hit in the city. Others stayed home with no options, but at the cost of losing vital incomes.

In the midst of this crisis, domestic workers decided that access to paid sick leave must be a priority at the community level, while we at the California Domestic Workers Coalition led a state-level health and safety campaign.

The Access to Paid Sick Leave Ordinance makes San Francisco one of the first cities in the country to introduce a transferable benefit system for domestic workers to finally get paid sick leave. The system will make it easier for domestic workers to calculate and offset paid sick leave and will help domestic employers contribute to the amounts owed. Domestic workers can accumulate paid sick leave from multiple employers through a centralized account that they can access directly through an app or web-based platform.

As San Francisco continues its tradition of innovative labor rights leadership, the ordinance serves as a beacon for other cities, not just in California but across the country. The provision of safety net services is not just a matter of fairness and correcting a historical injustice, it is part of our vision for the future of the domestic work industry.

My mother worked as a domestic servant for most of her life. She passed away earlier this year and I wonder what she would say if I could tell her now, after a life of hard work looking after families all over town, that she could take the day off to take care of yourself.

While my mother never saw this new reality that domestic workers are building for themselves, there are still thousands of domestic workers today who wake up before sunrise and take their children to school early to support their families while doing all the other work enable.

It has been a long and hard-won road for many, but today we celebrate this important and historic step in promoting the dignity and rights of domestic workers.

Kimberly Alvarenga is a director of the California Domestic Workers Coalition.