The California battle for health and safety for domestic workers

ABSTRACT

This article reflects on the legislative campaign of the California Domestic Worker Coalition, including Hand in Hand The Domestic Employers Network, to end the exclusion of household workers (nannies, personal attendants and cleaners) from occupational health-and-safety requirements. It discusses the strategies and arguments deployed, and analyses the rationale of the governor, who vetoed the bill in 2020 in the name of the home as a private space impossible to regulate. Foregrounding the voices of domestic workers, it highlights their understanding of caring labour and determination to organise for change, seen in the winning of an amended bill in 2021.