Domestic workers can face abuse, terrible conditions. A bill aims to change that.

Maria Paladines was living in Curaçao when she received a job offer from New Jersey to work as a live-in domestic worker for $400 a week.

Before boarding the plane, Paladines was excited; she was going to make more money than what she was making in Curaçao. But after she landed in Newark, and began her new job, her excitement was replaced by deepening concern.

Paladines said she endured insults and deportation threats while she worked 12-hour shifts Monday through Saturday at the home. She was originally hired for cleaning duties only, but over time, she said was continually asked to perform additional jobs, including cooking, laundry, and ironing clothes.

A legislative bill of rights aimed to prevent stories like Paladines’ by establishing regulations and protections for New Jersey’s more than 60,000 domestic workers was introduced in Trenton in January 2022.  But today, a year and a half later, advocates of the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights are concerned that the bill hasn’t reached the Senate or Assembly floor for a vote yet.

“At the moment, we are making sure that all parties at the table who have an interest in this bill have their concerns addressed,” said Sen. Richard Codey, D-Essex, a main sponsor for the bill.

Many live-in domestic workers in New Jersey are hired from abroad by self-proclaimed staffing agencies that lure prospective employees with misleading offers, advocates say. Because they are new to the U.S. and seldom know anyone, it becomes hard for these workers to quit.

“Usually, they plan ahead and escape to find their own house,” said Jenifer Garcia, spokesperson for New Labor, a New Jersey workers advocacy group. “Others are fired on the spot and left on the streets.”

The Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights would provide workers with protections against sexual harassment and wage theft, the right to take a lunch break and a two-week termination notice.

Other provisions in the legislation provide special rights for domestic workers who live in their employer's homes, such as a four-week termination notice, and a written job contract requirement.

"A contract is very important because it's going to say in detail what they are supposed to do, whether is it cleaning, cooking, babysitting, or a combination. That contract would also help lower the rate of wage theft, since there is going to be evidence of employment," said Garcia.

In the case of live-in domestic workers, receiving a termination notice in advance would help the domestic worker find a new place to live, instead of becoming homeless and unemployed from one day to another, she added.

The bill will also designate a $1.2 million budget for its implementation and will create a Domestic Workers Board that would enforce compliance and offer recommendations.

Workers with rights?

Domestic workers shared stories of difficult work conditions.

Johana Ramirez, a domestic worker in Essex County, hasn’t had a vacation in the past five years. She showed up to work one day and her employer, a male in his mid-30s, was waiting for her naked. She asked him to put his clothes on, but she said the man, with a carefree smile, dismissed her request.

“It was very demoralizing because I woke up early in the morning that day as I do every day to not only come across paychecks that don’t add up, but also to deal with sexual harassment,” she said.

Sindy Sanchez, an East Orange caregiver, said her paychecks are often less money than she’s earned.

“Twenty-five percent of the check is missing all the time,” Sanchez said.

“The agency sometimes blames the patient’s insurance, and the insurer says that they are not our employers. We don’t even know who doesn’t pay us, nor how much they owe us,” Sanchez said.

Nita Dahal, a domestic worker in Edison, had similar concerns. “Sometimes they don’t pay me what I earned,” Dahal said through an interpreter. ”Employers don’t offer concrete excuses and say that I ate stuff from the freezer.”“They take advantage of the language barrier and exploit us,” she added.

Ninety percent of domestic workers in New Jersey don’t have a written contract and 57% have been victims of wage theft, according to a 2020 report conducted by Rutgers Center for Women and Work.

Currently, New Jersey has no civil remedies for domestic workers that are victims of wage theft, exploitation, and sexual harassment. There is also no legal requirements for domestic workers to get breaks.

“In New Jersey there are no civil protections for domestic workers. Federal law can only help when the employer has more than 15 employees. But most domestic workers are the sole worker in the home,” said Rocio Avila, employment law counsel and state policy director at the National Domestic Workers Alliance.

If the state legislature passes the bill, domestic workers will be able to submit complaints through the state Department of Labor, something that they can’t do now, Avila said.

For Garcia, from New Labor, the problem lies in the fact that many employers see domestic work as informal gigs. “Domestic workers are often seen as help, not as workers with rights,” she said.

And when the workplace is a private family home, the circumstances are exacerbated, Garcia added.

For example, when Paladines first arrived for work in New Jersey, she didn’t receive a paycheck until after her third week of work. That’s because her employer withheld the first two payments to cover relocation expenses, something that wasn’t part of the original agreement, she said.

Then, when she mistakenly heated up some bacon in a part of the kitchen where meat was not allowed because of Kosher rules, her employer asked her if she was stupid and didn't let her eat that night as a punishment, Paladines said.

The threats and harsh scolding Paladines received for months didn’t make her cry, she said, but the winter cold in a basement room with no heating made her sob. She said she was lodged in what she described as a plain, sad room with no closet or drawers where she could keep her belongings.

“For some time, I had to work and lodge at my employer’s sister’s house, and they refused to put a heater (in her room). I had to beg with my face covered in tears. It was very hard for me,” Paladines said. “That’s when I knew that I needed to leave.”

She quit working for the family after four months on the job.

Opponents of the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, such as the New Jersey Business & Industry Association, have argued that the bill is too overreaching.

“There's some concerns that we have with the bill in a few places where we think it goes above and beyond trying to create parity for these workers,” said Alexis Bailey, vice president of government affairs at the New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

For example, the bill requires employers to pay an extra hour every time a worker is unable to have a lunch break due to dealing with an impromptu job duty such as taking care of a patient that is vomiting, something the Association sees as an imbalance, Bailey said.

While the Association agrees with anti-retaliation statutes in the bill, it has concerns on whether it should be considered retaliation when a seasonal worker is not rehired in future seasonal periods, Bailey said.

The Business and Industry Association also argued that home care workers should be excluded from the bill because they are already regulated through licensing granted by the Division of Consumer Affairs.

But current law doesn’t actually offer specific labor protections for home care workers, said Avila, legal counsel at the Domestic Workers Alliance. “The (law) only requires agencies to register (with) the New Jersey workforce development agency in order to regulate agencies dispatching workers to houses. It doesn’t offer protections to workers per se,” she said.

Codey, a former Senate president, noted that there are wage and other disparities between men and women in the workplace.  In 2022, women earned an average of 82% of what men earned, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of median hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers.

“That unfortunately gets even worse for people of color, particularly women. This bill aims to address and fix this and many other issues that domestic workers face in the workplace,” Codey added.

Today, advocates of the National Domestic Workers Alliance hope the bill gets a vote by the Senate and Assembly and are exhorting supporters to visit the alliance online action center  and send a letter to their legislators in support of the bill.

Meanwhile, Sade Dozan, who employs a domestic worker in her Bayonne home, noticed that while most agencies were charging her $50 an hour, the worker would get less than $20. So she decided to hire someone on her own to whom she pays $25, along with conventional worker benefits such as paid time off.

“There is a lack of awareness. Because it happens in the private space of a home, their work passes as invisible,” Dozan said.

This is the second time the bill has been introduced in Trenton. In 2021, the bill was introduced for the first time but got stalled.

“Where it stands, we want to make sure any amendments are added and agreed upon before the bill continues through the process,” said Codey.

By the end of 2022, the bill had received favorable votes in both the Assembly and Senate labor committees, and in the Assembly state and local government committee.

The bill was then referred to both chambers’ appropriations committees, but a hearing date has not been granted yet. If the current legislation doesn’t move the bill forward by the end of 2023, it’ll need to be reintroduced in 2024 and pass through the same process again.

Since 2013, ten states have enacted bills of rights for domestic workers. New York, California, and Massachusetts were among the firsts, while Virginia has been the last one since 2021.

The Press reached out to Assemblywoman Britnee Timberlake, D-Essex, a main sponsor for the bill in the Assembly, but she could not be reached for comment. Sen. Paul Sarlo, D-Bergen, and Assemblywoman Lisa Swain, D-Bergen, the appropriations committee chairs in the Senate and the Assembly respectively, were also unavailable to answer when — or if —their committees might hear the bill.

Juan Carlos Castillo is a reporter covering everything Lakewood. He delves into politics, social issues and human interest stories. Reach out to him at JcCastillo@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Are domestic workers hired help or employees with rights?