In a survey conducted at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, black immigrant domestic workers in Boston and other cities explained the widespread unemployment and fear of losing their homes without a safety net.
The National Domestic Workers’ Alliance (NDWA), in partnership with the Institute for Policy Studies’ (IPS) Black Worker Initiative, conducted the survey between May 19 and June 6, with 811 responses from black immigrant domestic workers in Massachusetts, Miami-Dade Florida, and New York City.
In a press call June 16, Associate Fellow Marc Bayard said that those who work as nannies, caretakers, house cleaners and other domestic workers were chosen for the survey “to capture the large Haitian Jamaican, Nigerian and Caribbean populations in those major metropolitan areas and the Afro Brazilian population.”
Lydia, a domestic worker from Boston, was told not to come back into work because of COVID-19, with no prior notice.
Aimée-Josiane Twagirumukiza, black organizing director at NDWA, says her group is continuously looking for new ways to get governments to support increasing wages and leave policies for domestic workers, “something that could make a really big difference for people who are having to make the hard decisions of caring for themselves or their families and having a day’s work on their paycheck.”
