Domestic Workers could soon be covered by mandatory health and safety protections

KPIX/CBS San Francisco

By Jocelyn Moran

Domestic workers who have previously been shut out from worker safety protections could soon be covered by mandatory health and safety guidelines under a California Senate bill.

Martha Herrera has worked a number of jobs while living in the U.S., including as a nanny. She's all too familiar with the responsibilities that come with that from making food for the kids to doing their laundry.

"For me, it was about supporting employers with their kids, so that they could do their job knowing their kids were going to be taken care of," a busy Herrera said. At the time we talked to her, she was in between jobs, doing her laundry and making her morning coffee and breakfast.

At the same time, she knows what could happen when you work a job with no safety protections in place. Currently, domestic workers hired by private employers in California are excluded from state safety laws in the workplace. Those safety laws that other employees have help avoid injury or illness.

Herrera described a time when she was badly injured while caring for a child.

"I hurt myself. I went to the doctors and my bosses told me, 'Here's $300 and bye.' And what does somebody do there? Who are you going to tell, if I don't have rights?" Herrera said.

If Senate Bill 686 passes through the legislature and gets the signature of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a situation like this could be avoided. It's a fight that domestic workers have been in for years. The California Domestic Workers Coalition is sponsoring SB 686. It was introduced in February, and getting to that point wasn't an easy road.

In 2020, Newsom vetoed Senate Bill 1257, which would have extended health and safety protections to domestic workers. Essentially, it would have extended the jurisdiction of the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) to cover domestic workers. But Newsom vetoed it citing that homes cannot be treated the same as a traditional workplace from a regulatory perspective.

Then Newsom signed SB 321, which created the Household Domestic Services Employment Safety Committee. It's a group made up of domestic workers, employers and professors.

In January, the advisory committee drafted voluntary guidelines to protect the health and safety of domestic workers to prevent illness and injury while on the job. The guidelines include identifying hazards in the home that could hurt workers and determining what supplies or equipment are needed to find solutions if there are hazards. Specifying the timing of breaks and lunch was also included.

In March, state Sen. María Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles) introduced SB 686. It would end the exclusion of domestic workers from California's worker protection laws and it would require safety guidance to be consistent with the voluntary guidelines the advisory committee drafted.

There's a lot that has to be considered though. Saba Waheed is the research director at the UCLA Labor Center. She's been doing research in the domestic work field for two decades.

Some of her recent work helped inform the voluntary guidelines that the advisory committee created. She said she's found that employers lack information as to what their responsibilities are when they bring a worker into their home.

"When we were doing our research, we found that generally the way that employers got information was often talking to other employers, so asking a friend or someone in their network in terms of 'Oh what do you pay?'" Waheed said.

SB 686 would make community-based organizations responsible for costs related to education and outreach materials.

"Especially for home care and child care, employers, many of them are low or middle-income people, and they may need more support in being able to uphold those standards, whether in health and safety or thinking about wages," Waheed said.

SB-686 would also require an assistance program to provide one-time grants for employers.

When it comes to regulation, the bill states that it would give the state until July of 2024 to adopt guidance to then help employers comply with what their legal obligations would be. By January of 2025, household employers would have to comply with regulations.

Everything from making sure domestic workers have scheduled breaks to ensuring they're safe from hazards, Herrera is fighting for. But her purpose has come from a painful past. She lost her only child after a battle with cancer. Her daughter was just 22 years old.

"I felt like I didn't have a life anymore. I would fall asleep and say 'God, don't let me open my eyes, I don't have anything else to do here,'" she said.

But Herrera said she knew she had to go on with her life. This has become her purpose.

"Whatever it takes, we're going to reach our goal. Because it's our right," she said.