Tiffany Williams2013-05-23T10:21:44-04:00Tiffany Williamshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=tiffany-williamsCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Tiffany WilliamsGood old fashioned elbow grease.The Lightness and Darkness of Transplanttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.29844402013-04-03T13:03:03-04:002013-04-03T13:03:08-04:00Tiffany Williamshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiffany-williams/
From a science point of view, the process of an autologous stem cell transplant is pretty straightforward: Grow and extract stem cells from the bone marrow, condition the body with extremely high doses of toxic chemotherapy drugs to try and reach every single microscopic cancer cell that might be lurking in the body, and then, the rebirth: revive the body from the brink of death by introducing the stem cells, and putting faith in biology while the stem cells grow into red cells, white cells, and platelets, effectively bringing back life.
But a stem cell transplant is also a dark and morbidly humorous process: we obliterate and revive, obliterate and revive. We endure countless needle sticks, we pee in cups, we get sick in buckets by the hospital bed, we are tethered to IV poles that stay with us every single moment of the day for days on end, with only a few minutes of reprieve to bathe in a tiny, plastic, sterile shower. As for me, I had complications and a lot of pain, I passed out, I bled out, I spent inordinate amounts of energy to stand, let alone walk around the room.
At the same time, the stem cell transplant is also a process that can bring light, perhaps not in our physical bodies, but in our minds. You are at once reduced to your basic elements, you are acutely tuned to your own physics, you cannot process or consume information at the rapid speed that dulls our senses in every day life. You can seek comfort in knowing that you are steadfastly defying death and fighting with your entire reserve to stay alive because somehow, at some point, you realized that it was worth fighting this hard for. There is a lightness in this kind of resolution.
I cannot speak for every cancer patient, but I know that we have a lot in common amongst us. While we can find meaning in our illness, meaning in our recovery, meaning for the purpose of our lives following re-birth, we cannot do it alone. We need to be sure that the treatments we take are the best available, that they have fewer and fewer side effects, that they are affordable, that we understand them, that our families understand them.
I am participating in a campaign to raise money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society not to be named "woman of the year," or to make my company proud, or even to make my family or friends proud. I am doing it because I am physically and emotionally incapable of resisting the opportunity to share our tiny world with as many people as possible: no one but us can understand the depth of that darkness and the ecstasy of that second chance to be alive, but through this campaign, I hope you can catch a shimmering glimpse of it and it's enough to inspire you to give, and try to make the darkness a little more bearable. Human kindness is the miracle we need this weekend.]]>Career, Interrupted: Facing Cancer in Your Twentiestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.25637612013-01-31T16:02:01-05:002013-04-02T05:12:01-04:00Tiffany Williamshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiffany-williams/project for trafficked domestic workers. I had moved to DC with the contents of a studio apartment in a U-Haul, social work degree in hand, only knowing two people: my best friend and my boss. At 27, I felt too young to know what to do next, and too old to run back to my parents.
Once I had the first round of chemotherapy, and learned how to manage and plan for the side effects, I felt more in control. I accepted the treatment plan and had faith that it would work. I kept my new job, told my mom I was fine, and still managed to make friends during treatment. By all accounts, on the outside I was the stereotypically "inspirational" patient. Of course on the inside, I was churning with anxiety.
The hardest part during that time was explaining my increasingly visible illness to my social work clients and colleagues. As my hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes started to fall out, it was nearly impossible for me to hide my cancer, which impacted my ability to inspire confidence. I looked sick. Even with a wig on.
I regularly consulted with supervisors to ensure that while I was physically able to continue working, I was also ethically able. I was working with people who were recovering from severe trauma, so I had to be vigilant about knowing my boundaries. When the cancer was out in the open, it took a lot of work to refocus the sessions away from my own issues, even when my well-meaning clients insisted that they check on me (and not the other way around), but we were eventually able to move past it and our work was successful.
When I found out that the chemotherapy wasn't working and I would have to undergo a stem cell transplant, we made arrangements to transfer the remaining clients to partner organizations. It was a heartbreaking experience and one of the hardest ones I've gone through in this whole journey. I felt I had failed. My body had failed. Not only was it another bump in the road for the women I was working with, it also validated one of the most prominent fears I had as a young adult cancer patient: losing my place on my career path.
Young adults face a slew of unique challenges when it comes to cancer -- from dating and sex, to finances, to career interruptions, to the fact that our cure rates haven't caught up with other age groups. We juggle all this while trying to stay alive at the same time.
Fortunately, my stem cell transplant was successful, and two weeks ago I reached my second year of remission, a big milestone in the blood cancer world. While I was undergoing intensive treatment, my employer helped me modify my work plan and I was able to keep my insurance and stay busy working from the hospital while I was recovering. I got additional support from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to help cover co-pays and prescriptions. I was lucky. I made many friends in my age group in online support forums who were applying for Medicaid in their twenties.
Blood cancers are the number one cancers affecting kids, adolescents and young adults. We need better, more-targeted treatments, and programs that will address our needs.
So this March, I am using my voice as an advocate and survivor to raise funds for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the organization that helped me when I needed it most. They are the largest voluntary cancer research agency specifically focused on finding cures and better treatments for blood cancer patients. I hope that through this Generation Why series on The Huffington Post, the community of young adult bloggers with cancer will be able to paint a picture of our lives, and inspire readers to take action in a variety of ways.
As for me, you can follow my personal journey on my blog or through Facebook.
Also on HuffPost: ]]>Human Trafficking Awareness Day: Spotlight on Domestic Workerstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.24438862013-01-10T12:09:10-05:002013-03-12T05:12:02-04:00Tiffany Williamshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiffany-williams/"Human Trafficking and Slavery Prevention Month" and reminded us that this year we are celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.
I have been working on the intersection of human trafficking and domestic worker rights since joining my organization as a social worker in 2008. Our project started 15 years ago at the Institute for Policy Studies, and today we work with a variety of worker-led organizations. In the beginning, we started drawing public attention to the severe exploitation experienced by domestic workers employed by diplomats and employees of the World Bank and IMF, and over the years, as more and more women came forward, we began providing direct social and legal services under the protections of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA).
The initial TVPA, and its subsequent reauthorizations, passed with bipartisan support and unanimous consent. Advocates working on behalf of trafficking survivors in the U.S. point to the dramatic impact of having the law in place, not only for prosecutions and stronger penalties, but also because it opened access to safety net programs and immigration relief that allowed victims to come forward with less fear about what would happen to them and their families.
It is particularly poignant to note that on this sesquicentennial anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, and on Human Trafficking Awareness Day, that for the first time since the bill was signed Congress has failed to reauthorize the TVPA. Further damage was done when partisan gridlock in the last Congress shamelessly allowed the even older and more established Violence Against Women Act to expire rather than better protect Native Americans, immigrants, and LGBTQ victims. These already marginalized communities deserve proactive leadership from their government, but were failed.
Domestic workers often live in the margins, too. As a recent NPR story noted, they are an "always present, but not often noticed" sector of the workforce. So, when they are being severely exploited or subjected to human trafficking in private homes, it is even harder to identify them. This is especially true when most media accounts of human trafficking focus on commercial sexual exploitation.
A landmark report released by The National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), a network of 39 membership-based affiliate organizations of over 10,000 nannies, housekeepers and caregivers for the elderly, revealed that the "unregulated world" of domestic work is ripe for exploitation. In addition to being largely excluded from many basic labor protections, domestic workers are exposed to toxic chemicals and hazardous conditions and only 4 percent of workers are covered by employer-sponsored health insurance. 67 percent earn less than the state minimum wage, and "91 percent of workers who encountered problems with their working conditions in the prior 12 months did not complain because they were afraid they would lose their job."
According to statistics gathered for us from the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, from 2007-2012 the national human trafficking hotline received 873 calls related to domestic servitude -- and almost 70 percent of the unique cases they identified had high indicators of human trafficking. The challenge of mustering the courage to ask for help, or the chances of being noticed by good Samaritans amongst the "invisible" class, (80 percent of cases were foreign-born), makes us believe these numbers are even higher than the hotline reflects. Notably, the state with the highest number of callers about domestic servitude was California, whose governor Jerry Brown vetoed a hard-fought Domestic Workers Bill of Rights last year.
This month, in honor of National Human Trafficking and Slavery Prevention Month, NDWA is launching a project aiming to raise awareness about human trafficking of domestic workers, and to build leadership skills of survivors to be their own advocates in policy and community discussions.
Human trafficking and worker rights are inextricably tied, and raising labor standards would help to address some of the most egregious violations that occur because domestic work isn't recognized as real work. At the same time, preserving strong Federal laws like TVPA and VAWA helps ensure that domestic workers who have been identified as victims can safely come forward and get help. Exploitation can be addressed from every point on the continuum, and domestic worker leaders will be speaking out at every opportunity.]]>What Will Excluded Workers Celebrate Next Labor Day?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18524072012-09-04T16:05:06-04:002012-11-04T05:12:01-05:00Tiffany Williamshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiffany-williams/excluded workers" movement -- workers who, because of policy or practice, fall outside the traditional labor protections offered to other workers in the US.
On August 29th, domestic workers all over the US celebrated the California Assembly's passage of AB889, the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. A coalition of domestic workers, employers, and allies have come together in an unprecedented way to organize fellow Californians in support. Even actress and comedian Amy Poehler produced a PSA urging action. The bill is now awaiting signature by Governor Jerry Brown, and organizers are hopeful that he will act quickly, allowing California to become the second state to pass legislation that specifically addresses the needs of domestic workers who are largely excluded from protection under current labor laws.
Meanwhile, direct care workers (those who provide vital in-home assistance to seniors and people with disabilities) are organizing for action from the Obama Administration to close the "companionship exemption" which has kept direct care workers from receiving guaranteed minimum wage and overtime protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act since the exemption was added in 1974. Earlier this year, the Department of Labor finally issued a proposed rule to close this loophole, and during the public comment period more than 26,000 Americans weighed on the regulation, the vast majority in favor of extending basic protections to these workers. With baby boomers starting turning 65 (one every eight seconds) and advances in medicine and public policy allowing people with disabilities to live in their homes and communities instead of institutions, the need for direct care workers and attendants is expected to grow. Yet because the job quality is so low (nearly half of direct care workers rely on public assistance to make ends meet), turnover is high and there may not be enough trained, dedicated workers to provide the kind of quality care that our families will need. Closing this loophole is one of the first steps we can take as a country to ensure that this workforce is ready for the change in demographics that has already begun. On September 21st, the Direct Care Alliance is putting together a day of action for direct care workers, you can learn more about it at www.directcarealliance.org.
Here in DC, after news broke that a group of students on J-1 "summer work travel" visas had been exploited at a Hershey Company packing plant in Pennsylvania, the National Guestworker Alliance successfully pushed for changes in the State Department- monitored visa program to reduce participants' vulnerability to abuse. Earlier this summer NGA joined forces with other worker and immigrant advocacy groups, including my project at the Institute for Policy Studies, to examine the full range of temporary work visa programs and recommend changes in policy that could help prevent human trafficking and exploitation. Another organization in this new coalition, the Global Worker Justice Alliance, released a report in May called Visas, Inc., which digs deeply into the world of foreign temporary work visas: in particular how unscrupulous corporations have found ways to exploit the regulatory weaknesses in these programs to undermine US workers' employment, and exploit foreign guestworkers for profit.
The traditional labor union movement brought enormous gains in working conditions for our country, and led the way for other civil rights breakthroughs throughout history, but it is important to remember how far we still have to go. Not only are these gains being threatened every day, there are still workers who remain excluded from even the most basic protections like minimum wage and health and safety regulations, and workers who are tricked into exploitative visa programs rigged by corporate interests. But there is hope: workers have earned many victories over the past century, and with more people joining us in organizing and advocacy for excluded workers, next Labor Day I am sure we will have even more to celebrate.]]>Protecting Guest Workers in the United Statestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11680102011-12-27T11:54:37-05:002012-02-26T05:12:01-05:00Tiffany Williamshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiffany-williams/project focused on the rights of migrant workers, I have been closely following the situation at the Hershey's Chocolate packing plant in Palmyra, Pennsylvania. Earlier this year, exchange students on J-1 visas faced threats and retaliation from their recruiting agency, the Council for Educational Travel (CETUSA) when they came forward to report exploitative conditions that violated federal worker protection laws and State Department regulations. The J-1 visa "summer work travel program," of which these students were a part, is intended to provide foreign college students with cultural immersion and the opportunity to "live and work in the United States," yet the students at the Hershey plant reported such restrictive work and living environments that there was no opportunity to do more than survive.
In August, the students filed a complaint with the State Department that contained serious allegations of intimidation and retaliation by their agency, the Council for Educational Travel (CETUSA). Shortly after, a human rights delegation, comprised of professors and practitioners with expertise in labor and employment law, and international human rights, expressed serious concerns about students' accounts of deception, coercion and threats from their recruiting agency. They called on the State Department to conduct an objective and expansive investigation of the sponsor. The New York Timesreported on their plight in October, noting that "CETUSA failed to heed many distress signals from students over many months, and responded to some with threats of expulsion from the program." For example, the company threatened to revoke a student's visa when he complained to the State Department.
For the last 13 years, my project, Break the Chain Campaign at the Institute for Policy Studies has focused on human trafficking of nannies and maids within the A-3/G-5 visa program, which include household workers for diplomats and employees of international organizations. Our work has shown the significant impact that improved oversight, education of workers and enforcement of consequences could have on curbing exploitation. We believe the key to successful improvements in this program has been collaboration with anti-trafficking service organizations and grassroots advocates who can share on-the-ground experiences with policymakers. There are still extensive improvements needed, particularly with worker education, but the progress has given us hope.
The State Department recently announced they would be completing a thorough review of the J-1 visa program. But as of this writing CETUSA is still sponsoring high school and college students on J-1 visas who plan to come to the United States. That's why the National Guestworker Alliance, the workers' rights group supporting the students, is now calling on the government to immediately suspend CETUSA from the program.
Yet CETUSA is only one of many recruiting agencies. And A-3, G-5, and J-1 visas are only a few of the many visas with inherent weaknesses that leave participants vulnerable to exploitation by sponsoring individuals or agencies due to a weakly regulated sponsorship and penalty process.
The H-2A program for agricultural guest workers, H-2B program for non-agricultural guest workers, and the H-1B program for teachers, scientists and other "specialty" guest workers are other examples.
Consider these other cases of guestworker exploitation in the United States. In April this year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a suit against the company Global Horizons for exploiting 400 Thai farmworkers working in Hawaii and Washington State. A company called Signal exploited more than 500 guest workers from India in shipyards after Hurricane Katrina. The Southern Poverty Law Center made history in December when it successfully brought a class-action human trafficking lawsuit on behalf of 350 Filipina teachers in Louisiana who came there with H1-B visas. It's the first time the Trafficking Victims Protection Act has been used to protect a group rather than an individual. In this case, the trial next July will center on the allegations that the teachers were brought to the United States by labor contractors who extorted huge fees and confiscated their passports, effectively subjecting the teachers to forced labor.
Workers' rights advocates, alongside anti-human trafficking advocates, have been urging the U.S. government to thoroughly review visa programs that depend on foreign labor contractors in order to minimize the vulnerability of workers to human trafficking and exploitation. Various drafts of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, notably the House version of the bill considered in 2008, have included extensive proposals for such regulations and remedies for victims, yet the U.S. government continues to fail in implementing serious protective reform. While some contend that our economy depends on cheap foreign labor, no one would argue that our economy requires the severe wage exploitation, fraudulent contracts, restriction of movement and the (sometimes violent) retaliation after complaints that we have seen repeatedly with these visa programs.
It's long past time for the federal government to make meaningful changes to protect guest workers.]]>What About the Woman Strauss-Kahn Allegedly Attacked?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8631292011-05-17T15:55:25-04:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00Tiffany Williamshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiffany-williams/
The IMF leader was (I think it's safe to use the past tense here because it's doubtful he'll re-emerge in politics, regardless of the outcome of this apparently damning case) a very likely French presidential candidate. In fact, he was widely seen as the Socialist Party's best hope for unseating French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Within hours of the story breaking, comments about a "Sarkozy setup" flooded the comments sections of online news reports, and soon emerged as their own articles.
As this story develops, it's all about Strauss-Kahn, instead of the woman (whose name is rightly protected) who accuses him of brutally attacking her. At her workplace. This woman, who was cleaning a $3,000-per-night hotel suite, is a human being. She deserves compassion as the global punditocracy conjectures about what's going happen to the IMF without that French "rockstar" at its helm.
My work focuses on the trafficking and exploitation of immigrant domestic workers, many of whom worked for Diplomats and employees of the World Bank and IMF. Of course, I'm reading the news coverage with interest. Over the past days, I have been watching how HER story is covered, in light of her occupation, ethnicity (reporters say that she's an African immigrant), and status as a crime victim. Usually, housekeepers are treated as silent, anonymous machines of the household, hotel, or office building, if they're noticed at all. But surely a vicious attack would shed light on the fact that this is a real person... right?
While I mostly work with household workers in private homes, the life of a hotel chambermaid is very similar. Being a housekeeper at a hotel (or anywhere else) doesn't exactly put you on equal footing with the wealthy and powerful when you are in "their" space. So when you're stuck in a bedroom (or private household) with them, what are your defenses?
Statistics about the frequency of sexual assault of hotel maids are difficult to find, but here's what I know about New York City's household workers, from a 2006 report by the Data Center and Domestic Workers United: "Thirty-three percent of workers experience verbal or physical abuse or have been made to feel uncomfortable by their employers. One-third of workers who face abuse identify race and immigration status as factors for their employers' actions." What we do know about the conditions of hotel housekeepers is that immigrants comprise the majority of that workforce, as do women of color, and that their workplace is dangerous on its own, let alone with the additional risk of sexual assault. Rushing to keep up with demand, hotel housekeepers have an injury rate 40 percent higher than workers in the overall service sector.
I have many other questions too. The two that come to mind immediately are:
1- Do Europeans and North Americans just assume that being subjected to sexual aggression is a given if you're a woman working as a maid in a wealthy man's home or hotel suite?
2- Why would anyone assume that a working-class woman would lie about a sexual assault to get money from a settlement?
I can't fathom why anyone would believe these things, but here we are in the comments section in Vanity Fair, the New York Times, and ABC News where every fourth word is "setup" and where the maid's getting very little empathy. I don't think the people writing these comments or news stories are malicious. It's just a symptom of the way household workers are treated in the United States and around the world. They are servants, and therefore -- for hotel guests and the people who can afford to have them clean their homes -- barely human.
Strauss-Kahn's lawyer Benjamin Brafman said that he represents "good people who have gone astray... that doesn't mean their lives should be destroyed." The themes of many of the reports and commentaries I have read center around the feeling that it would be a tragedy for this politician's career, and his removal would put the global economy at risk.
Because this "just" involves a hotel housekeeper, there's not a lot of conjecture about the tragedy she'll face as she tries to put her own life back together. Even if the reason that reporters aren't covering her story with humanity is that they want to respect our legal system's promise of "innocent until proven guilty," they're missing the broader point: this storyline isn't uncommon. No one is talking about the countless other household and hotel workers who have endured sexual harassment and assault at the hands of wealthy (or even middle-class) men around the world.
Why? Perhaps because it's supposed to be a fact of life that poor women's bodies are collateral damage of war, prizes for global accomplishment, or simply a means to an end. Women who are household workers or "servants" are even more vulnerable to dehumanizing sexual assault than others because their relationships are inherently unequal to their employers. We don't have scientific studies of the relative risks, but we have hundreds of testimonies of household workers who have been trafficked, exploited, and assaulted, and our common sense that tells us there are many more out there.
Of course it isn't uncommon that famous/wealthy men who assault women usually dominate the news. What will Strauss-Kahn do next? Even when their conduct is deemed improper without being illegal, there's a lot of hand-wringing over how prominent men such as former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, and former Sen. John Edwards, will suffer for their indiscretions.
Poor guys.
Cross-posted with IPS blog.]]>Why We Need to Think of Our Mothers as Caregiverstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8582242011-05-08T13:49:00-04:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00Tiffany Williamshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiffany-williams/Instead of a bouquet or greeting card, she'd really appreciate a new respect for the value of care, in all its forms, and a new vision for what we deserve as Americans when it comes to giving and receiving care.
Today, American families celebrate Mother's Day. For centuries, we have venerated mothers for the selflessness and the tender caregiving that allows us to feel safe and to thrive. Beyond the vases of roses, the boxes of chocolate, even the spa gift certificates, we can do more for the caregivers in our families.
There are many forms caregiving relationships that are full of tenderness and intimacy -- not just between mother and child, but between a son and his and aging father, or between the home health aide and the Alzheimer's patient, or between the working woman with a disability and the attendant who helps her get ready in the morning. Comedian Amy Poehler commented on the indispensable role of caregivers at the Time 100 event last week:
I have thought very hard and long about what has influenced me over the past couple of years, and ... it was the women who helped me take care of my children ... who come to my house and help me raise my children. And for you working women who are out there tonight who get to do what you get to do because there are wonderful people who help you at home, I would like to take a moment to thank those people, some of whom are watching their children right now, while you're at this event. Those are people who love your children as much as you do, and who inspire them and influence them and on behalf of every sister and mother and person who stands in your kitchen and helps you love your child, I say thank you and I celebrate you tonight.
Care workers, those who provide the childcare, housekeeping and direct care services that allow us to go to work and support our families, or who allow our loved ones to receive care at home with dignity instead of being institutionalized, need our attention as a nation. Those who aren't lucky enough to work for the Amy Poehlers of the world are often working under strenuous conditions, vulnerable to abuse and burn out. Many workers lack pathways to career advancement and citizenship, compromising working conditions and jeopardizing the quality of care.
Meanwhile, the struggle to find quality, affordable caregiving services becomes more challenging by the year. Even as the economy "recovers" from the destruction caused by Wall Street speculators and tax-evading corporations, budget shortfalls are prompting cuts on the state and federal level to many of the basic human services that we depend on in this country, including Medicaid and Medicare. Some lawmakers are pushing to repeal some of the most promising programs in the new healthcare law that will help our seniors and fellow citizens with disabilities access home care such as the CLASS Act, and have threatened to block Medicaid, which according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities would cause "serious hardship."
A burgeoning movement of domestic workers and direct-care workers, along with disability and senior rights advocates, came together this week in Washington, D.C. for the latest meeting of the Caring Across Generations campaign. This multi-organization campaign is led by the National Domestic Workers Alliance (whose director Ai-jen Poo was recently featured in a New York Times article by IPS board member Barbara Ehrenreich), Jobs with Justice, and Hand in Hand: The Domestic Employer's Association.
The meeting brought together dozens of organizations from the disability rights, senior rights, and worker rights worlds, and included a panel discussion with policy experts like Dean Baker and Van Jones. A broad coalition, including the Institute for Policy Studies, has come together to provide leadership to the campaign, which is based on the values of quality, affordable care, dignified and meaningful jobs and the values of inclusiveness and interdependence. In addition to joining the fights to preserve the services and programs that families depend on today, the long-term vision of the campaign includes:
Creating jobs to meet the growing demand for caregivers
Improving the quality of jobs so that these jobs respect the rights of workers who provide this valuable care
Providing training and a meaningful career ladder
Providing a path to citizenship for undocumented care workers
Supporting individuals and families to access and afford quality care, and to address the needs of unpaid family caregivers.
The campaign will be fully launched in D.C. at the first "Care Congress" on July 12. I hope you will join us, and the more than 700 people from all around the country who want to be part of the movement to transform care in the United States.
What mom really needs this Mother's Day isn't a bouquet of flowers or greeting card. It's a new respect for the value of care, in all its forms, and a new vision for what we deserve as Americans when it comes to giving and receiving care.]]>Wisconsin Union Struggle Is All Too Familiar for Excluded Workerstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8345982011-03-11T13:44:06-05:002011-05-25T18:40:24-04:00Tiffany Williamshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiffany-williams/Rather than race to the bottom, where no one has rights, why shouldn't we work together to ensure that everyone does?
In the midst of an economic crisis that has shaken the foundations of our society, creating massive unemployment that's unlikely to be resolved anytime soon, hundreds of thousands of public-sector workers are battling proposals to cut more jobs; restrict or destroy collective bargaining rights; revoke "prevailing wage" laws; terminate union negotiated contracts; remove required binding arbitration; and prevent unions from collecting dues from their members.
These attacks come with a sharp, racist edge -- targeting a sector where more than 1 in 5 black workers are employed.
The Excluded Workers Congress represents nine sectors of the U.S. workforce, including domestic workers, farm workers, taxi drivers, restaurant workers, day laborers, guestworkers, workers from Southern right-to-work states, workfare workers, and formerly incarcerated workers. We know very well what life is like without a union contract.
In some southern states like Virginia and North Carolina, collective bargaining is already banned outright for public sector workers. Farm work, one of the most dangerous occupations in the US in terms of workplace injuries and exposure to toxins, is legally excluded from OSHA, among other protections. Household workers, like nannies, housekeepers, and even caregivers for the elderly and disabled, are similarly excluded from the right to organize, overtime protections, and OSHA. Guestworkers, who come to the United States on work visas, not only lack the right to organize for workplace protections, but face deportation and retaliation if they speak out against violations and abuse. And workfare employees aren't even considered workers in many places.
The right to organize and bargain collectively is the basic human right to pool our individual power into a unified voice that's strong enough to stand up against unfair or abusive workplaces and to ensure fair pay and benefits. When workers are denied their most basic right to bargain collectively, rampant abuse and exploitation are inevitable.
We know this because it's already our reality.
The struggle of Wisconsin's workers has emerged as an international emblem, though worker rights are under attack across the nation. Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and New Jersey, among other state governments, are using a trumped-up argument about supposed "budget shortfalls" to justify stripping workers of their human right to organize and bargain collectively. Closing tax loopholes, ensuring that the wealthy pay their fair share, and ending Wall Street bailouts are clear alternatives, but the wealthy aren't being asked to sacrifice.
Teachers, firefighters, bus drivers, and millions more are being put on trial for the crimes of investment bankers, hedge-fund managers and the corporate executives who have actually made money on the backs of the laid off, foreclosed on workers.
Scapegoating workers for the budget shortfalls that Wall Street caused diverts attention from solutions that would require sacrifice from wealthy individuals and corporations. We reject the argument that good jobs paying a living wage -- those with pensions and benefits, are unfair since some workers don't have them. Rather than race to the bottom, where no one has rights, why shouldn't we work together to ensure that everyone does? As excluded workers, we stand in solidarity with public sector unions under attack in Wisconsin and across the country, even while we are still fighting for the most basic workplace protections and recognition for ourselves.
Tiffany Williams is the advocacy director of Break the Chain Campaign at the Institute for Policy Studies, and an advisor to the National Domestic Workers Alliance. Erica Smiley is the southern regional organizer for Jobs with Justice. More information on the Excluded Workers Congress is on our website www.excludedworkers.org.
Cross-posted from the Institute for Policy Studies.]]>Silencing Human Trafficking Victims in Americatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8198442011-02-07T16:11:12-05:002011-05-25T18:30:24-04:00Tiffany Williamshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiffany-williams/Women should be able to access victim services, regardless of their immigration status.
Thanks to a wave of anti-immigrant proposals in state legislatures across the nation, fear of deportation and family separation has forced many immigrant women to stay silent rather than report workplace abuse and exploitation to authorities. The courts have weakened some of these laws and the most controversial pieces of Arizona's SB 1070 law have been suspended. Unfortunately, America's anti-immigrant fervor continues to boil.
As a social worker, I've counseled both U.S.-born and foreign-born women who have experienced domestic violence, or have been assaulted by either their employers or the people who brought them to the United States. I'm increasingly alarmed by this harsh immigration enforcement climate because of its psychological impact on families and the new challenge to identify survivors of crime who are now too afraid to come forward.
For the past decade, I've helped nannies, housekeepers, caregivers for the elderly, and other domestic workers in the Washington metropolitan area who have survived human trafficking. A majority of these women report their employers use their immigration status to control and exploit them, issuing warnings such as "if you try to leave, the police will find you and deport you." Even women who come to the United States on legal work visas, including those caring for the children of diplomats or World Bank employees, experience these threats.
Though law enforcement is a key partner in responding to human trafficking, service providers continue to struggle with training authorities to identify trafficking and exploitation in immigrant populations, especially when the trafficking is for labor and not sex. While local human trafficking task forces spend meetings developing outreach plans, our own state governments are undermining these efforts with extremely harsh and indiscriminate crackdowns on immigrants.
Even before Arizona's draconian anti-immigration law went into effect, hundreds of immigrants were arrested and deported without screening that would have identified them as victims. While it's true that victims of crime who are "out of status" or undocumented can access immigration relief in the form of special visas, it will be impossible for service providers and advocates to reach them if their fears of law enforcement are reinforced by "ICE ACCESS" programs. The best known of these is 287(g), which allows local police to enforce federal immigration laws, as well as state legislation like SB 1070.
Approximately five million U.S. citizen children have at least one undocumented parent. A study by the Urban Institute revealed that children are often the real victims of workplace raids -- 80 percent of the children of workers in their study sites were less than ten years old. When families experience long separations from other family members, the report noted the effects can include significant economic hardship, psychological stress, and feelings of abandonment that can lead to sustained mental health problems.
When the American Psychological Association recently recommended overhauling our detention centers and social service networks to better protect children and maintain family units, it acknowledged the widespread psychological trauma caused by immigration enforcement -- including everything from infant developmental delays to dismal academic performance.
Regardless of their legal status, these women are human beings working hard to feed their families. Their home countries' economies have been by shattered by globalization. Our economic system depends on their cheap labor. Yet much of the debate about U.S. borders fails to acknowledge immigrants as people, or appreciate the numerous cultural contributions that ethnic diversity has provided this country. As a result, humane comprehensive immigration reform remains out of reach in Congress.
We're a nation of immigrants and a nation of hard-working families. An economic crisis caused by corporate greed has turned us against each other in desperation and fear. We should band together to uphold our traditional values of family unity, to give law enforcement the tools they need to provide effective victim protection and identification rather than reactionary laws, and ensure that women can access victim services, regardless of immigration status.
Tiffany Williams is the advocacy director for Break The Chain Campaign, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies.