For the most part, we try to keep updates on this site confined to news from the front lines in the Campaign for Fair Food. But, every now and then, “off-topic” news comes along that is so good that we just have to share it, and the recent news out of New York State for domestic workers is just that good!

From today’s New York Times (editorial, “Domestic Workers’ Rights”, 6/7/10):

“New York State has the chance to lead the nation in extending basic workplace protections to domestic workers — the nannies, housekeepers and caregivers for the elderly who are as essential to the economy as they are overlooked and unprotected.

The State Senate has just passed a domestic workers’ bill of rights, with an array of guarantees that most workers take for granted, like paid holidays, sick days, vacation days and the right to overtime pay and collective bargaining. The Assembly passed its version last year. The Legislature should swiftly reconcile the bills and send a measure to Gov. David Paterson for his signature.

Domestic workers, like farm workers, have long struggled for equality in the workplace. Labor protections drafted in the New Deal specifically excluded both groups of workers, who remain highly vulnerable to exploitation…” read more

Congratulations go out to our friends at Domestic Workers United and the National Domestic Workers’ Alliance, whose hard work and unflagging commitment have brought hundreds of thousands of domestic workers in NY State to the threshold of their own, long-overdue “New Deal.”

While such progressive legislation may be a distant dream for farmworkers or domestic workers in the southern states, it is nonetheless heartening to see that the example is being set somewhere in this country, because social change has a way of catching on once it is achieved and the world doesn’t, in fact, stop spinning.