Domestic workers to rally in Rittenhouse Square, highlighting continued rights violations, retaliation by employers

In Adriana George’s six years as a nanny in the Rittenhouse and Graduate Hospital neighborhoods, she’s made friends with other domestic workers — nannies, caregivers and house cleaners — who lost their jobs, and sometimes their reputations, after asking their employer for better work conditions.

One nanny George knows was fired for declining to do chores outside of her job description. It took her months to find a new job. Several times she got an initial interview, but no call back afterward.

“The nanny found out that the former employer had taken to parent Facebook groups to bad-mouth and spread falsehoods about her,” said George, a member-leader of the National Domestic Workers Alliance’s (NDWA) Pennsylvania chapter. “Employers have far too much power with no real consequences, which causes huge financial and emotional distress for domestic workers.”

The NDWA’s Pennsylvania chapter scored a big win in 2020 when Philadelphia City Council passed a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. It requires that domestic workers get a written contract outlining their jobs, pay rates, benefits, and schedules. The law also mandates meal breaks after five hours of work, advance notice of termination, a day off per week for live-in workers, and other protections.

But many nannies, caregivers, and cleaners are still hesitant to address violations of this law, out of fear that their employer will retaliate, said Nicole Kligerman, NDWA’s Pennsylvania director. The chapter wants to put more muscle behind the bill of rights, she said, so they’re asking for new legislation to speed up enforcement, empower workers to report violations, and provide them with some financial security in case reporting costs them their job.

The alliance is holding a rally in Rittenhouse Square on Wednesday to promote these proposals. They chose that location because local NDWA members recently completed a survey of more than 200 domestic workers throughout the city, Kligerman said, and saw a pattern of retaliation that was especially noticeable in Rittenhouse, which is one of the city’s wealthier neighborhoods.

Nearly a quarter of survey respondents said they had experienced retaliation after asserting their rights under Philadelphia law, the survey found.

“That has a chilling effect on workers,” Kligerman said. “It’s not just about losing the job they currently have, but the fear … that it will preclude them from being hired in the future.”

About a quarter of survey respondents had experienced wage theft, and 44% had seen violations of the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.

An NDWA member who helped conduct the survey, a house cleaner in Philadelphia who asked not to be named, said she and many others like her were worried about what might happen to their work prospects if they spoke out publicly about violations of their rights. “They’re afraid,” she said.

In a prior office-cleaning job, this NDWA member complained about a man coming into the men’s bathroom and using the toilet while it was marked as closed so she could clean it. She was fired soon after, and it took her a year to find new employment.

At her next job, with a house-cleaning company, the same NDWA member worked a nine-hour shift with no breaks on her first day. She asked for a lunch break and didn’t get one, but was fired at the end of the day.

George said she got involved with NDWA after hearing these experiences of friends who were afraid to speak up.

“I wanted to be the voice for those who were suffering in silence,” said George. She was one of several members scheduled to speak Wednesday at a rally in Rittenhouse Square. “This work is critical to the economy and we all deserve to be valued as such.”

Councilmembers Kendra Brooks, Jamie Gauthier, and Katherine Gilmore Richardson are also expected to attend the rally Wednesday. Brooks and Gilmore Richardson are on the city’s Domestic Workers Standards and Implementation Task Force, which was created by City Council in 2019. A recent report by that task force highlighted several policy recommendations, including more funding for enforcement of domestic workers’ rights, and promised more specific ideas to come.

Unlike the bill of rights, which passed in 2020, the legislation NDWA wants now would require funding. They want the city to hire additional staff within the city’s Office of Worker Protections and launch a safety-net fund for domestic workers who are retaliated against and blacklisted by their former employer after reporting a workplace violation.

The Office of Worker Protections, within the city’s Department of Labor, doesn’t just oversee domestic workers but is tasked with enforcing workplace laws across the city. The NDWA and other labor organizations asked for the office to get $1.2 million more funding for the next fiscal year — after Mayor Jim Kenney’s initial proposal included a slight cut to Department of Labor funding.

City Council’s latest proposal includes about $800,000 more for the department, but it’s unclear how much of that is allocated to the Office of Worker Protection.

“We’re heartened that step was taken,” Kligerman said, but “it still absolutely falls short of the amount that’s needed.”