Ai-jen Poo

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Ai-jen Poo has been the director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) since 2010. She co-founded Domestic Workers United (DWU) in 2000 to mobilize domestic workers and educate them about their rights. Recognized as one of the most successful organizers of this generation, Ai-jen's work in the DWU has seen the passage of the legendary Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in 2010 that gave 200,000 domestic workers in New York City basic labor protection such as minimum wage, health benefits, and paid leaves. A 2012 TIME 100 laureate, Ai-jen keeps the cause of marginalized workers her focus.

Achievements

Why Ai-jen Poo is Extraordinary

Ai-jen Poo is the director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), instrumental in the enactment of the first ever Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in New York City. Back in 2000, Ai-jen co-founded the Domestic Workers United in order to organize domestic workers and create better working environment for the taken for granted laborers. Caring Across Generations is one of the projects Ai-jen is currently advocating in response to the aging generation of baby boomers. Her work has been praised by seasoned activists and she has created such a huge impact that she made it to TIME’s 100 List of the Most Influential People in the World last 2012.

While most people might not have heard of Ai-jen, she is considered by domestic workers as their hero. Ai-jen, who admittedly calls herself as someone belonging to the leisure generation, is not compelled to help women out of pity. She is a graduate of Columbia University with a degree in Women’s Studies, enough proof that she knows what she’s gotten into. Not only that, Ai-jen also knows who she is up against. But neither did her economic status nor academic background stopped her from siding with the underdogs—domestic workers.

Doing the Work that Makes All Work Possible

Ai-jen grew up in a family with strong female presence. Both her grandmother and mother speak their minds and taught her not to turn a deaf ear to any abuse she witnesses. This early initiation to philanthropy and humanitarianism provided Ai-jen a solid foundation for a full-fledged career in activism. On the other hand, Mu-ming Poo—her father—led by example. He’s an activist and a staunch supporter of democracy in Taiwan where he was born and raised.

Seeing her mother do all the work inside their home made Ai-jen consider other mothers whose careers make it impossible to tend to their children and chores at home. Their environment was littered with immigrants like her, some legal and some aren’t. Most immigrants are employed by families to care for their elderly family member and do everything inside the house—from cleaning to caring for the kids. Because of the outdated New Deal that excluded colored women from availing of their basic employment rights, they often end up the butt of abuse.

The very people who do all the work in the house so that the family members—especially the providers—can do their own thing and make a difference in the society, are not given due credit. Ai-jen saw more of that when she met Filipina workers from Hong Kong trying their luck in the US. According to them, Hong Kong had a much structured policy when it comes to compensating domestic workers. This inspired Ai-jen to create the Domestic Workers Union.

The Domestic Workers Union (DWU) and the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA)

After seven years of leading DWU, Ai-jen and other advocacy groups convened to talk about convincing legislators to pass a bill that would push agencies and employers to give domestic workers the benefits they deserve as legitimate workers. In three years’ time, the organization they created called National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) successfully saw the passage into law of the first Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in New York. It encouraged Ai-jen to keep pushing the government to recognize workers’ role in the society.

Caring Across Generations is one of their initiatives to address the looming issue of the aging baby boomers. They are now working to provide homecare and caregiving a win-win-win environment where they “create millions of new jobs in homecare to help prepare for the growing population of people who will need assistance, and improve the quality of the jobs to ensure they are dignified positions that workers can take pride in” (source: Guernica Magazine).

At the rate they are going, more and more domestic workers can look forward to a brighter future while the country’s workforce can sleep soundly at night knowing that they have people to care for them in their golden age.

Top Reasons why Ai-jen Poo is Extraordinary

She was arrested twice for protesting against police brutality and advocating ethnic studies to be taught at Columbia University.
She founded Domestic Workers Union to organize marginalized workers and put a stop to abuses they go through in the hands of cruel employers.
She was one of the founders of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) and soon became its director.
The National Domestic Workers Alliance was instrumental in the enactment of the first Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in New York.
Along with NDWA, Ai-jen initiated the Caring Across Generation project to address the need of upgrading caregiving services and the benefits afforded to workers.
She is an advocate of organizing with love.
She was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by TIME last 2012 and Crain's "40 Under 40."
She is a recipient of the Open Society Institute Community Fellowship, the Union Square Award, the Leadership for a Changing World Award, the Ernest de Maio Award from the Labor Research Association, the Woman of Vision Award from Ms. Foundation for Women, the Alston Bannerman Fellowship for Organizers of Color, the Twink Frey Visiting Scholar Fellowship at University of Michigan Center for the Education of Women, and the Prime Movers Fellowship.
She received the Independent Sector's American Express NGen Leadership Award.
She was named one of Yes!'s Breakthrough 15 and Newsweek’s "150 Fearless Women."

Biography

Biography of Ai-jen Poo

Date of Birth: | Born in: 1973 / Nationality: United States of America

Ai-jen admits that she has never experienced working as a hired hand unlike the many women she has helped. However, growing up under the acre of her immigrant grandmother and mother, Ai-jen has seen the two women do everything around the house and struggle to be equal with native citizens. Her father is also one of the people who profoundly influenced her and opened her young mind to activism. Although immigrants from Taiwan, she feels fortunate to belong to a family who never allow anyone to demean them just because of their race and color.

This kind of respect for race eventually directed Ai-jen’s career path. Ai-jen never saw herself doing the things that she has achieved now when she was younger. This unassuming woman only dreamt of being a potter, not a grand dream considering that her parents were both successful individuals in the field of science—her mother is an oncologist, while her father is a molecular neurobiologist. Her life took a surprising turn when she got to college and saw a broader world, a world where people are judged by their color and what they do for a living.

Organizing With Love

Slavery dates back to Biblical times and even earlier than that. It’s an integral part of society and one that had to change as human beings became more civilized. As much as men no longer reside in caves, slavery also became a thing of the past. Slavery is considered barbaric in today’s time where even animal rights are recognized.

But some people still get a taste of enslavement. What’s more disgusting is that they are the ones left to take care of the loved ones of people who abuse them. Abuse can take many forms. For most domestic workers, it’s getting paid below their minimum wage while being on-call for 24 hours. Relatively, these workers are considered more fortunate than those who get physically or sexually abused. Some have to deal with all that along with emotional attacks perpetrated by their employers.

In this context, it is easy to see that something is missing in the relationship of the employer and helper. Ai-jen has thought about it for some time and called the missing link “love.” If love is present, then injustice won’t take place. If love exists in the equation, then no abuse would be committed. As an organizer, Ai-jen was compelled to do something for people whose voice aren’t heard because they are not worth hearing considering the “minor” part they play in the big picture. This is where Ai-jen disagrees. For her, domestic workers “do the work that makes all work possible.”

A couple who are out of their home conquering this and that usually have a hired hand to look after the kids they don’t have time to care for. Their kids are loved and taken care of; yet those who fulfill their responsibilities at home don’t even get the credit. Worse, they are sometimes shortchanged.

So Ai-jen has all the reasons to stand up and encourage these women to speak for themselves and demand what is rightfully theirs considering what they are expected to give in exchange of the measly compensation they get. In the report Ai-jen wrote titled “Organizing with Love: Lessons from the New York Domestic Workers Bill of Rights Campaign,” she gave a comprehensive review of the evolution of domestic workers’ rights and the need for more reform. She also touched on what the Domestic Workers United have achieved over the years of lobbying for the enactment of Bills that would further protect and uphold the rights of the marginalized blue-collared workers.

Where does Ai-jen get the motivation? What keeps her positive despite the oppositions they are facing? For Ai-jen, fighting for the rights of domestic workers is more than just a sympathy move. Looking further into the future, Ai-jen sees the imminent need for more workers as the baby boomer generation advance in age. She is hoping that by the time this vision becomes a reality, the government has in place by-laws that would encourage people to take on a career in caring and increase the quality of service that will in turn put the elderly and their families at ease when availing of such services.

Ai-jen Poo’s Early Life

Ai-jen takes pride in her lineage. She’s born into a family of immigrants from Taiwan. Her mother learned to speak English on her own and supported her education. She eventually became a successful oncologist. Ai-jen’s father is a neurobiologist and is a successful man in his own right. He’s a one-time activist and inspired his daughter to become one too—only that Ai-jen decided to make it a way of life.

Ai-jen was born in Pittsburgh. She’s been to her parents’ birthplace and also spent some of her childhood in Southern California and Connecticut. Her grandmother lived with them and she helped her mother raise Ai-jen to become the strong woman that she is now. It’s her mother and grandmother who shaped her ideologies and inculcated the value of hard work in her. Even though both of her parents were in the field of science, Ai-jen never had the inclination to follow in their footsteps, not that she was forced to do so. They just let Ai-jen be despite dreaming of pursuing a career in pottery. When she began attending high school at the Philips Academy Andover, she has not changed her mind about being a potter.

Ai-jen Poo Falls in Love with Domestic Workers

She enrolled in Columbia University and signed up for the Women’s Study program. Since she was a young girl, she’s been taken by women like her mother and grandmother who play a big role in society yet are not duly acknowledged. Also, being an immigrant herself co-existing with fellow settlers from overseas, gave Ai-jen a first-hand experience on what it’s like to be treated as someone who does not truly belong.

Staying in New York as she began attending university made Ai-jen more sensitive to racial stereotypes. It also ushered her into a life of activism. When she was still an undergraduate, she was arrested along with her fellow activists for participating in the Manhattan Bridge planking in protest against police brutality. Colored people then were not treated as humanely as Caucasians are.

A short stint behind bars only made Ai-jen more furious at the ongoing injustices in her community and even in her own school. The following year after her arrest in 1995, Ai-jen again joined a protest, this time to call for the university to hire faculty members to teach ethnic studies and promote awareness of the diverse population of the institution. Ai-jen was one of the 100 students who occupied the rotunda of the university’s Low Library and refused to vacate the place which then led to her second arrest. But the students could no longer be intimidated. They held a five-day siege of the administrative building and stood their ground until a compromise was reached.

Working for CAAAV

When she was about to graduate, Ai-jen joined an organization called Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence (CAAAV). The stories she heard from women immigrants were utterly unbelievable. Some complained about being maltreated, some admit that they have been subjected to verbal and emotional abuse, others say their male employers tried to take advantage of them, and there were others who were not accordingly paid.

What touched Ai-jen was the story of a colored woman from Jamaica. She went to the United States in the hope of working and sending herself to school. After several months of looking for a job, she ended up offering her domestic services to a couple who said they will send her salary to her family in Jamaica. For the next sixteen years, she has not heard from them and was totally cut off from home. No mail arrived for her and her family was under the impression that she abandoned her responsibilities because no money was ever sent to them. The poor woman finally escaped with the help of the couple’s children.

This is a sad fact and Ai-jen couldn’t just close her eyes. She had to do something.

Founding the Domestic Workers Union

In 2000, Ai-jen established the Domestic Workers Union (DWU) in order to create a network of helpers that will then work together towards improving their working environment. Asked what her work really is, Ai-jen explained:

"My work is to raise the level of respect for the work that goes into caring for families. Some people call it domestic work. Some people call it women’s work. Some people call it caregiving work. It’s all the energy that goes into taking care of homes and of families across generations. I call it the work that makes all other work possible. Particularly in this day and age, that work is increasingly done by non-family-members in a paid context.

Ever since this workforce came into being, it’s been devalued both because of who does it—women, originally African Americans and today mostly immigrants—and because of a legacy of slavery in this country. When labor laws were passed in the 1930s, Southern members of Congress refused to sign on if farmworkers and domestic workers—who at the time were largely African Americans in the South—were included. In the deal that Congress struck, those two workforces were excluded, and they remain excluded to this day.

So a lot of our work is to reverse that legacy of exclusion so that workers have basic protections on the job. We want to raise public consciousness and awareness about the work of caring and its value in the broader economy and society." (Source: Spirituality & Health)

Forming the National Domestic Workers Alliance

The Domestic Workers Union soon spread by word of mouth. In 2007, a convention held by 40 organizations geared towards pushing the government to enact laws that will protect domestic workers led to the creation of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA).

Three years later, Ai-jen became the organization’s director. Through the efforts of the organization and its partners, the first Domestic Workers Bill of Rights was enacted in New York. The bill entitles workers to paid sick leave and minimum wage among many other benefits.

Ai-jen is currently pre-occupied with Caring Across Generations, which she co-directs. Caring Across Generations, like NDWA, is a coalition of advocacy groups. Around 200 organizations collaborate under Caring Across Generations in order to make home-care favorable to both patients and caregivers.

Aside from New York, Ai-jen’s organization has just recently seen the passage of the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in Hawaii. She is hoping that more states will follow. Campaigns are ongoing in California, Illinois, and Massachusetts.

Ai-jen doesn’t mind dreaming big dreams. The Domestic Workers Bill of Rights used to be a dream not only of hers but of the 200,000 women workers who thought they could not do something to change the system. Without being in their shoes, Ai-jen understands these women’s plight because she takes the time to listen and she doesn’t hesitate to love.

Organizations and Programmes Supported

National Domestic Workers Alliance
Domestic Workers United
Caring Across Generations
Domestic Workers Bill of Rights
Momsrising (Board of Directors)
National Jobs with Justice (Board of Directors)
Working America (Board of Directors)
The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (Board of Directors)
The National Council on Aging (Board of Directors)
International Labor Organization Decent Worker for Domestic Workers Convention
California Bill of Rights
Illinois Bill of Rights
Massachusetts Bill of Rights
We Belong Together
Beyond Survival
ILO Campaign
#BeTheHelp
Restaurant Opportunities Centers United
Jobs With Justice
CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities
Board of Social Justice Leadership
The Seasons Fund for Social Transformation
The Labor Advisory Board at Cornell ILR School
The New Labor Forum Editorial Board
Hand-in-Hand Domestic Employers Association

Awards and Achievements

1996: Served as the Women Workers Project organizer at CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities in New York City
2000: Co-founded Domestic Workers United
2000: Recipient of an Open Society Institute New York City Community Fellowship
2009: Named one of Crain's "40 Under 40"
2009: Included in New York Moves Magazine's "Power Women"
2009: Awarded the $25,000 Alston-Bannerman Fellowship for Organizers of Color by the Center for Social Inclusion
2010: Became the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) Director
2010: Domestic Workers United was instrumental in New York State passing the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights into law
2010: Recognized by the by the Feminist Press in their "40 under 40" awards
2011: Named one of Yes!'s Breakthrough 15
2011: Received the Independent Sector's American Express NGen Leadership Award
2012: Named one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in the World
2012: Named one of Newsweek's "150 Fearless Women"
Lobbied for the creation of Columbia’s Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race
Received the Open Society Institute Community Fellowship, the Union Square Award, the Leadership for a Changing World Award, the Ernest de Maio Award from the Labor Research Association, the Woman of Vision Award from Ms. Foundation for Women, the Alston Bannerman Fellowship for Organizers of Color, the Twink Frey Visiting Scholar Fellowship at University of Michigan Center for the Education of Women, and the Prime Movers Fellowship
Recognized by Women Deliver as one of 100 women internationally who are "delivering" for other women

RESOURCES:
Time (The World's 100 Most Influential People: 2012)
Wikipedia (Ai-jen Poo)
Domestic Workers Alliance (Ai-jen Poo)
Facebook (National Domestic Workers Alliance)
National Domestic Workers Alliance (Campaigns)
The Huffington Post (Building a Caring Economy)
The Nation (Can 'Caring Across Generations' Change the World?)
The New York Times Blog (The Nannies’ Norma Rae)
Bill Moyers (Ai-jen Poo)
Andover.edu (Ai-jen Poo '92 named to list of 100 most influential people in the world)
Yes Magazine (Ai-jen Poo: Organizing Labor—With Love)
BCRW (Participants: Ai-jen Poo)
Independent Sector (Meet the 2011 American Express NGen Finalists)
Columbia College Today (The Home Front)
The Raw Story (National Domestic Workers Alliance’s Ai-Jen Poo: ‘There’s a lot of cultural resistance to the notion that we’re aging’)
Crain's (Ai-jen Poo)
Spirituality & Health (Home Sweet Home? Not for Domestic Workers. Ai0jen Poo Demands Justice)
The Nation (Labor Leader Ai-jen Poo: We Are All Domestic Workers Now)
We Belong Together (Ai-jen Poo)
The American Prospect (The Invisible Workers)
Guernica Magazine (The Caregivers Coalition)
Bill Moyers (Inside the Invisible World of Domestic Work: An Interview with Ai-jen Poo)
NY1.com (One On 1 Profile: Labor Leader Ai-jen Poo Fights To Give A Voice To The Voiceless)
Center for the Education of Women (Organizing With Love)