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Title: Unprotected on the Job: How Exclusion from Safety and Health Laws Harms California Domestic Workers

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2020

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Abstract: Since its creation in 1973, California’s Occupational Safety and Health Act has excluded an entire class of workers—those employed in private households as nannies, housecleaners, home health aides, and home attendants. Today, these workers provide vital services to an estimated two million households across the state.1 This report documents the human cost of their exclusion from safety and health laws at a time when COVID-19 and ecological disaster compound typical workplace hazards. Predominantly women of color and immigrants, California’s domestic workers have long faced low wages, scant benefits, and persistent job insecurity. The devaluation of this workforce is reflected in its systematic exclusion from basic legal protections that apply to most other occupations. The federal minimum wage, for instance, was denied to home care aides for nearly eighty years, from 1938 until 2015, when this exemption finally ended.2 Domestic workers, however, have not yet gained inclusion in other bedrock labor protections. Their exemption from California’s safety and health law is now nearly fifty . . .

Url: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1776&context=gc_pubs

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Authors: Jabola-Carolus, Isaac

Publisher: City University of New York

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Health, Labor Force and Occupational Structure

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