Member News

Michele Masucci Named Vice Provost for Research at Temple University

Photo of Michele Masucci by Joseph V. Labolito, Temple University

Provost Hai-Lung Dai has named Interim Vice Provost for Research Michele Masucci as the vice provost for research, effective immediately, with an initial appointment to June 30, 2016. The Office of the Vice Provost for Research is responsible for technology transfer and business development, grant submission, research compliance, research-related training, and management of special research support programs.

“Dr. Masucci has demonstrated excellent leadership as interim vice provost for research since 2012,” said Provost Hai-Lung Dai. “She has reorganized and expanded the structure of the research office and developed it into an efficient unit to service faculty and support research at Temple. At a time of the initial implementation of the new budgetary system, we are grateful to Michele for stepping up and accepting this appointment to continue her service and provide continuing stability to Temple’s research communities.”

This past year, Temple’s schools, colleges and Fox Chase Cancer Center collectively generated nearly $214 million in grant-funded research expenditures, not counting university expenditures. Temple’s schools and colleges have increased research awards by an average of $22.5 million in fiscal year 2013 and fiscal year 2014, as compared with fiscal year 2012.

“This increase in funding highlights the importance of the university’s strategic efforts to foster improved collaboration and interdisciplinary research among schools and colleges on both the Main and Health Sciences campuses,” Masucci said.

As a leading, active researcher on Temple’s Urban Apps & Maps Studios, Masucci has examined how barriers to accessing information resources using geographic information technologies are interrelated with community development and environmental-quality problems, including accessing health, education and social services. She has developed university-community partnerships with organizations that address human rights issues and planning related to water-quality monitoring and assessments. She also led a bilateral university partnership that involved five Brazilian and U.S. universities, along with a network of nongovernmental organizations in both countries, to examine the role of citizens and scientists in environmental-quality monitoring and policymaking.

Masucci was recently named co-chair of the Faculty Standing Committee of the Federal Demonstration Partnership, for which she leads the Pipelines Initiative, aimed at expanding access to science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers for women and underrepresented minorities. She is also Temple’s representative to the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable of the National Academies.

Masucci joined Temple University’s Department of Geography and Urban Studies in 1997 and has since held a variety of research and academic leadership positions. Currently she is a professor of geography and director of the Information Technology and Society Research Group.

She holds a PhD and an MA in geography from Clark University and a BS in geography and regional planning from Salisbury University. Prior to Temple, she was assistant professor of geography at Auburn University and the University of West Georgia.

– Hedy Taub Baker

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AAG Staff
AAG Staff
Annual Meeting

Glen MacDonald on Remembering John Muir

Remembering John Muir on the Centennial of His Passing:
Writer, Naturalist, Scientist, Activist, Geographer?

[Glen MacDonald also is organizing a featured panel session, “Geographers on John Muir: Assessing His Legacy and Relevance After 100 Years,” for the 2015 AAG annual meeting in Chicago, April 21-25. More information will be available soon.]

John Muir died in Los Angeles, California on Christmas Eve, 1914 with the pages of an unfinished manuscript on Alaska beside him in his hospital bed. As we mark the centenary of Muir’s passing what might we say about him from the perspective of Geography? Muir can claim many titles — writer, naturalist, scientist and environmental activist. Can we also consider him a geographer? Certainly Muir worked and wrote in a very formative period for American Geography and the Association of American Geographers. Although he received honorary degrees from the University of California, Wisconsin, Harvard and Yale, Muir never earned a formal university diploma. He did, however, attend the University of Wisconsin for two years starting in the 1860’s. Alas, this was long before the establishment of the Department of Geography there. But then founding lights of the AAG, including William Morris David, educated in the 19th century like Muir, did not hold degrees in the then incipient field of geography either. In Muir’s case his academic interests focused on chemistry, geology and botany. Through Ezra Carr, a Professor of Natural Sciences, Muir was likely introduced to the then revolutionary theories of Louis Agassiz regarding Pleistocene glaciation and this became a lifelong interest. Muir would also become acquainted with the controversial theories on evolution articulated by Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species. Although Agassiz was to remain deeply hostile to Darwin’s theory of natural selection, the ideas of both of these men were highly influential in the thinking of Muir as well as creators of the AAG such William Morris Davis. More than this though, Muir, like Davis and every geographer of the time, was profoundly influenced by that foundational figure of modern geography, Alexander von Humboldt. Indeed, in 1866 Muir wrote to his mentor and confident Jeanne Carr “How intensely I desire to be a Humboldt!” Muir’s regard for Humboldt, his intellectual development in the natural sciences and his intense interest in combining both geology and botany reflects the same scholarly, and at the time revolutionary, crucible that formed the science of Davis and Clements. By inclination and available education he was arguably as much a geographer as many of the founders of the AAG.

A scan of a more than 100-year-old photo of Muir by C. F. Lummis taken in 1901.
Owned by: Glen M. MacDonald
John Muir Memorial Chair
Distinguished Professor of
Geography,
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and
The Institute of the Environment and Sustainability
UCLA
Los Angeles, CA
90095-1524
310-825-5008
macdonal@geog.ucla.edu

Like Davis, Muir was a sharp observationalist-inductivist who moved beyond the descriptive confines of natural history and sought to explain nature rather than simply observe and record. Within the earth sciences, Muir’s work on glacial features and evidence of past glaciation coupled with his theory on the glacial origins of Yosemite and other Sierra Nevada valleys stands as an important and lasting contribution. Physical geography is sometimes delineated from geology through its attention to modern processes and landforms. In this regard Muir showed a similar inclination. He was the first to discover living glaciers in the Sierra Nevada. This work, published in 1873 in the American Journal of Science and Arts must have been particularly sweet for Muir as it reinforced his position in a well-known scientific disagreement with Josiah Dwight Whitney, a Professor of Geology at Harvard and head of the California Geological Survey, who argued, incorrectly, that the Yosemite Valley was a tectonic feature. However, if geography is indeed the integrative science, then Muir was to more than equal many founders of the AAG in his desire and capability of spanning the earth and life sciences. Muir wrote many descriptions of the distributions of montane and alpine flora, but my favorite, and certainly most integrative was his study of the giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum). In his 1876 monograph published as a Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Muir analyzed the contemporary distribution of the species along the west slope of the Sierra Nevada, noted its environmental relations and particularly its disjunct distribution. The latter he attributed to the fragmentation of its range by Pleistocene glaciers emanating from the High Sierra. Now, today we know Muir had an overstated belief in the extent and role of glaciation and new research shows that the geographic distribution of giant sequoia may largely be explained by micro-climate, but the questions he asked remain topical. Muir also presaged the current focus of many geographers on the long-term trajectories and uncertain future of plant animal species in the face of human impact. Consider his pondering the future of the giant sequoia in his 1876 “What area does Sequoia now occupy as the principal tree? Was the species ever more extensively distributed in the Sierra during post-glacial times? Is the species verging on extinction? And if so, then to what causes will its extinction be due? What have been its relation to climate, soils and to other coniferous trees with which it is associated? What are those relations now? What are they likely to be in the future?” These are the same questions biogeographers are asking about a multitude of endangered species.

Muir’s scientific work and his writings were no doubt well known by many of the founders and first members of the AAG. What of his actual engagement with professional geography and his regard by the discipline at that time? It is notable that Muir was a member of the Committee for Arrangements, along with William Morris Davis and a number of eminent geographers for the 8th International Geographic Congress in 1904. His impact on our discipline clearly transcended his passing. It is striking to me that the 1958 Honorary Presidential Address by John Leighly at the first Annual Meeting of the AAG to be held on the west coast was entitled “John Muir’s Image Of The West.” I was alerted to Muir’s quote regarding von Humboldt through Leighly’s speech. Today, 100 years past his death, although citations to Muir’s scientific papers may be sparse, his ideas on the importance of past glaciations and his books such as My First Summer in the Sierra or Our National Parks remain widely known by geographers investigating questions of physical geography, conservation or human-nature perception and interactions. As Muir is in the pantheon of thinkers who developed modern environmentalism and conservation, it would be hard to find any geographer who has not been exposed to the work and philosophy of Muir in the course of their education. Geographer activists knowingly or unknowing are also taking a page from his book, most strikingly developed during his emotional and ultimately failed attempt to save the Hetch Hetchy Valley. For generations these ideas have undoubtedly helped formulate the thinking of geographers and through them the course of the AAG. So, although never formally a trained geographer, Muir was drawn by the same forces of curiosity and cross-disciplinary inquiry that have propelled geographers and geography over the past century.  I am inclined to consider him a true geographer and one of our seminal figures. As he so fervently desired in 1866, Muir was and is “a Humboldt.”  (John Muir: Born April 21, 1838, Dunbar, Scotland; Died December 24, 1914, Los Angeles, CA)

Glen MacDonald is distinguished professor and inaugural John Muir Memorial Chair in Geography at UCLA. He engages Geography with scholars, policy makers, writers, artists, activists and others to look at contemporary nature and people issues in the American West.

Glen MacDonald also is organizing a featured panel session, “Geographers on John Muir: Assessing His Legacy and Relevance After 100 Years,” for the 2015 AAG annual meeting in Chicago, April 21-25. More information will be available soon.

DOI: 10.14433/2014.0019

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Glen M.MacDonald
Glen M.MacDonald
Annual Meeting

Symposium on Physical Geography at the 2015 AAG Annual Meeting

A special feature of the upcoming 2015 AAG annual meeting is the one-day Symposium on Physical Geography, scheduled for Thursday, April 23. The overall intent of the symposium is to raise the visibility of physical geography research at the AAG annual meeting, and provide additional networking opportunities to facilitate and enhance dialog among physical geographers on emerging developments, challenges, and approaches related to physical geography.

The symposium is also an experiment with alternative formats for physical geography sessions at future AAG annual meetings. Over the years there have been numerous informal conversations among members of the physical geography community regarding potential changes to the oral and poster sessions of the AAG annual meeting. Arguments have often been made for larger poster sessions and fewer oral sessions, under the expectation that these format changes would lead to increased session attendance and hence improved visibility within the discipline of the research efforts of individual physical geographers and enhanced popularity of the AAG annual meeting among physical geographers. Reference is often made to the formats of popular meetings of other geophysical-related scientific organizations, which typically include a small number of themed oral sessions that are selected by an organizing committee from proposals by members, with the majority of the attendees’ research contributions displayed in large poster sessions. Many of these arguments were raised again at the special session, Conversation on the Future of Physical Geography, held at the 2014 AAG annual meeting in Tampa. With these recommendations in mind, AAG past presidents Carol Harden, Richard Marston and Julie Winkler organized the one-day symposium as a modest, but manageable, effort to explore the potential for alternative session formats and implications for other components of the AAG annual meeting.

The Symposium on Physical Geography will feature two morning sessions of invited presentations around the theme, Environmental Reconstruction–A Nexus of Biogeography, Climatology and Geomorphology. This integrative research theme was selected as it cuts across the many facets of physical geography and encompasses the study of past climates, landscapes and biological systems, along with the reclamation of altered environments. The afternoon will be devoted to an extended poster session in a new mode, with up to 100 posters on display during the entire afternoon. Poster presentations are being solicited on all aspects of physical geography, including environmental reconstruction, and the posters will be grouped by theme and/or specialty group. Presenters will post the times next to their poster when they will be available for discussion with viewers, although they are encouraged to stand by their poster during at least a portion of the period from 4:30-6:30 p.m. The symposium will conclude with a happy hour from 4:30-7:30 p.m.

The symposium will be followed by a second Conversation on the Future of Physical Geography, scheduled for Friday, April 24, 11:45 a.m. At this time, attendees will have an opportunity to reflect on the symposium (both its strengths and weaknesses), consider whether this type of structure warrants further experimentation, and, if so, recommend strategies for selecting themes and symposia organizers for a 2016 Symposium on Physical Geography. The long-term goal is to develop meeting formats that support the careers of physical geographers and enhance physical geography within the AAG.

Physical geographers at all stages of their careers are strongly encouraged to submit an abstract for the Thursday afternoon poster session. The deadline for abstracts is November 5, 2014. Please indicate as a Special Request on the online abstract submission form your interest in being part of the Symposium on Physical Geography poster session, and email a copy of your abstract confirmation to Professor Carol Harden (charden [at] utk [dot] edu). Specialty groups are urged to co-sponsor the poster session, and to also use the poster session for some of their own activities such as student poster awards.

Updates on the Symposium on Physical Geography will be posted on the AAG website

and also communicated via the AAG Geogram. Please contact Carol Harden (charden [at] utk [dot] edu), Richard Marston (rmarston [at] k-state [dot] edu), or Julie Winkler (winkler [at] msu [dot] edu) with questions or suggestions for the Symposium on Physical Geography. We hope to see you in Chicago!

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AAG Staff
AAG Staff
Post

AAG’s GeoProgressions Project Hosts Researcher-Training Workshop in Washington, DC

How do children progress in their knowledge and understanding of geographic and spatial concepts? What are the influences of maps and geospatial technologies in that learning process?

Questions of this nature were at the heart of a recent workshop hosted by the AAG’s GeoProgressions project, funded by the National Science Foundation to build capacity for researching learning progressions in geography.

The GeoProgressions workshop, held from October 9-12, 2014 at the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C., prepared 28 participants to carry out research on learning progressions related to maps, geospatial technology and spatial thinking. The participants met for panels and smaller breakout sessions for discussion and training activities on the following topics:

  • Definitions of learning progressions with examples from geography, math and science education.
  • Discussion of relevant research on spatial cognition, map learning and GIS education.
  • Materials and procedures that can be used to develop a hypothesized learning progression, for example:
  • Approaches to constructing samples and assessment items for quantitative studies.
  • Demonstration of how to perform validity tests of research instruments.
  • Demonstration and practice of qualitative methods, including clinical interviews.
  • How to interpret quantitative and qualitative data.
  • Common errors, issues and obstacles in learning progressions research.
  • Strategies for working with teachers and students in K-12 classrooms.

The workshop sessions were led by a group of geography, math and science education researchers with expertise in learning progressions and spatial thinking. Most of the workshop leaders also contributed chapters to a handbook produced by the GeoProgressions project entitled, Learning Progressions for Maps, Geospatial Technology, and Spatial Thinking.

Moving forward, the workshop participants will formulate plans for researching learning progressions in geography. Their work will be coordinated by the National Center for Research in Geography Education (www.ncrge.org), a research consortium committed to the advancement of basic and applied research in geography education at all levels. Researchers at more than 30 universities in the U.S. and abroad are currently partners in the NCRGE research coordination network.

For more information about the GeoProgressions project and to access videos from the workshop, please visit www.ncrge.org/projects/geoprogressions or contact the project director, Dr. Michael Solem (msolem [at] aag [dot] org).

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AAG Staff
AAG Staff
New Books for Geographers

New Books: October 2014

Every month the AAG compiles a list of newly-published books in geography and related areas. Some are selected for review in the AAG Review of Books.

Publishers are welcome to send new volumes to the Editor-in-Chief (Kent Mathewson, Editor-in-Chief, AAG Review of Books, Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803). Authors interested in reviewing books should also contact the Editor-in-Chief (kentm@lsu.edu).

October, 2014
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AAG Staff
AAG Staff
President's Column

Toward a More Healthy Discipline

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Mona DomoshIf one googles the word ‘stigma’ the definition that appears first on your screen (“a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person”) is followed, as most definitions are, by a phrase showing how that word is commonly used; in this case the phrase that google uses is “the stigma of mental disorder.” I know that I shouldn’t be surprised by this, particularly given the recent publicity about Robin Williams and his secret battles with depression, but I was. I had assumed (obviously incorrectly) that in popular parlance a mental disorder was no longer considered a character flaw or mark of disgrace, but rather an illness that afflicts certain people and families and that is treated (like any illness) therapeutically. I have had several bouts of depression that have left me drained and feeling vulnerable, and anxiety is something I’ve come to live with but only after years of therapy and different forms of treatment. I haven’t felt ashamed of this, but then again I don’t make a habit of talking about my illness or mental health in general. But prompted by some wonderful colleagues who are proposing a new AAG committee on mental health in the discipline, that’s exactly what I want to do in this column.

For many of us October represents the midpoint of fall term when one can literally feel the anxiety level within our classrooms and hallways begin to rise. According to the American College Health Association’s 2013 survey[i], over 51% of undergraduate students felt overwhelming anxiety during the past twelve months, and almost 32 % felt so depressed that it was difficult to function (with a notable gender difference; in both cases higher numbers for women). Eight percent had seriously considered suicide. In the U.K., a study undertaken by the National Union of Students showed that one in five students reported that they had a mental health illness. And in geography we often encounter the additional challenge of requiring fieldwork for many of our courses and research, creating situations that may exacerbate mental health conditions.[ii] It’s a stark reality we face, and few of us know how to manage it. Academic leaders in Canada are ahead of the curve. Some Canadian universities are considering ways to reduce anxiety during peak, end-of-term periods by reworking exam schedules while others are training student leaders in mental health awareness in order to reach out to their peers. But for most faculty members, awareness of our students’ mental health comes in bits and pieces; notes from a disability office/health clinic, overheard anecdotes, or the student who is willing to share their illness. The big picture – the scope of the problem that has been referred to in some circles as having reached crisis proportions – has certainly eluded me and I suspect many faculty, with the effect that discussions about how to handle the situation are muted if at all present.

And it’s not just undergraduate students who are experiencing high levels of anxiety and depression (and other mental disorders). I highlighted in my column last month the important work that graduate students do for our discipline and academic institutions, noting that they often conduct this labor in conditions that are not of their own choosing and certainly not well remunerated. Those conditions in addition to the uncertainties graduate students face in the academic job market create highly stressful situations that can often lead to anxiety disorders, depression and in rare instances suicidal behavior. Recent online news media have brought these issues to the fore, offering suggestions about how graduate programs can offer support for students’ mental health issues that range from openly acknowledging the problem to providing training for faculty teaching in these programs about how to recognize and address mental health issues.

In my case, it was only after I left graduate school that my mental health became a concern. Unmoored from the networks of friends and colleagues from graduate school and living through the constant insecurities of one-year positions, my taken-for-granted coping strategies disintegrated and eventually disappeared, leaving me in a very dark world of despair. It literally was a struggle each day to make it through my classes and meetings without breaking down into tears, while at home I found it impossible to sleep (thus further deteriorating my mental health). I of course told no one, exacerbating my feelings of loneliness and estrangement and plunging me deeper into depression. Apparently my story is a fairly common one; a recent study has documented some of the factors that can lead to anxiety disorders and depression among contingent faculty, with the stress of non-permanent positions ranking high. The authors look to institutional change in order to combat some of these concerns, particularly since their findings suggest that it is the contingent faculty who are the most committed to their institution who suffer the most negative consequences in terms of feelings of anxiety and depression.

I wonder, however, what we as an association and discipline can do to help. I finally recovered from depression by reaching out to some very good friends who encouraged me to find professional treatment. But I know that if I had been able to talk about what was happening with my colleagues without feeling shame that I would have recovered much sooner. I also realize that if I had received training about how to recognize and deal with clinical depression and anxiety disorders I would have (hopefully) recognized those symptoms in myself and been more equipped to handle them. This (among other things) is exactly what the proposed new AAG committee will take on as its mission. Spearheaded by Beverley Mullings, Kate Parizeau, and Linda Peake, a group of geographers organized a series of sessions at last year’s AAG meeting on mental health issues, established a listserv (MHGEOG-L [at] lists [dot] queensu [dot] ca), and are now proposing to establish a standing committee of the AAG. The proposed Committee on the Status of Mental Health in Geography will conduct research into the scope of the problem and assess the policies of other organization and institutions, provide professional guidance to the Council, the AAG, and geography departments in terms of protocols and ethical issues related to mental health, and engage in advocacy and awareness-raising within the AAG and academic institutions. I think this is a very important and long-overdue step that we need to take. The word “stigma” should not be a presumed outcome of “mental disorder.” I welcome your thoughts.

DOI: 10.14433/2014.0018

[i] See American College Health Association, American College Health Association-National College Health Assessment II: Reference Group Undergraduates Executive Summary Spring 2013, Hanover, MD: American College Health Association, 2013.

[ii] See Jacky Birnie and Annie Grant, Providing Learning Support for Students with Mental Health Difficulties Undertaking Fieldwork and Related Activities, Gloucestershire, U.K.: Geography Discipline Network and Geography and Environmental Research Unit, University of Gloucestershire, 2001

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Mona Domosh
Mona Domosh
Annual Meeting

Who’s got your back? Domestic Workers in Chicago

By the early 1980s, the introduction of neoliberal policies across urban America profoundly impacted its already declining industrial base. In Chicago, from 1972 to 2000, manufacturing employment plunged by nearly 260,000 jobs (and thus decent blue-collar wages). Soon the industrial economy was replaced with a service economy that consisted of low-wage service jobs with no social protection, unionization, or opportunities for promotion. This economic transition, coupled with an increasing demand by middle-class families, provided the principal conditions for the expansion of the domestic work industry.

Since the early 2000s this industry has critically expanded in mayor metropolitan cities in the US, and Chicago is no exception. Today, an estimated 200,000 domestic workers constitute the invisible backbone of Chicago’s economy.

The Nature of Domestic Work

According to the International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention # 189, domestic work consists of work performed in or for a household or households,. It usually includes cleaning, shopping, cooking, caring for the sick or elderly, caring for children, and looking after pets among other tasks. Many domestic workers live in the home of the family for which they work. Those who do not live in the employer’s home often work for several employers, generally for only a few hours per week for each employer.

Unlike many work industries, domestic workers operate in a largely unregulated and unprotected arena. The army of housekeepers, caregivers, cleaners, and nurses, enable thousands of Chicagoans to go to their jobs every day. Yet, despite this needed and growing workforce, domestic workers suffer from few labor protections and demanding working conditions. According to the ILO 2011 Report, these workers typically earn around 40 percent of average wages in their country. They often have no limit to the hours they work, are rarely entitled to rest periods, are not paid the minimum wage and do not receive employee benefits such as maternity leave.

In the US, domestic workers are explicitly excluded from the protections of key federal labor and employment laws and standards. The 1935 National Labor Relations Act, which originated in racists regulations to prevent African-American workers in the southern states to join unions, guarantees workers’ rights to form unions, choose representatives, and bargain collectively. However, the law does not apply to either farmers or domestic workers. Nor does the federal anti-discrimination law which only applies to companies with multiple employees. Domestic workers are also excluded from the protections of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Live-in domestic workers, who are especially subject to unreasonable and uncompensated demands on their time, are excluded from the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Yet, their contributions to families around the country are limitless. Domestic workers provide emotional, physical and social support for children, elders, and working family members. The labor provided by domestic workers is the labor that makes all other work possible. Households are looked after, children are raised and cared for and elders are comforted and assisted. Due to these responsibilities and tasks provided by domestic workers, families are able to go to work in peace and know that their most important assets are in good care and protection.

Why this job is unseen or remains unseen and unregulated is in many ways attributed to the capitalist logic: something that does not generate value or facilitates its exchange is devalued or rendered socially invisible. Additionally, it is difficult to quantify, measure, and assign a value to the tasks performed by the domestic workers in capitalist terms. Nevertheless, housecleaners and nannies typically take great pride in their work even when it goes unnoticed or unappreciated by their employers. Nannies develop a lot of affection with the children they take care of and, in some cases, play a stronger parental role than the children’s parents.

Contributing to the invisibility, many things get confused in this type of industry to the disadvantage of domestic workers and the benefit of the employer. Domestic work is not recognized as employment in the traditional sense; it is performed in someone’s home, not in a conventional workplace. In domestic work, the home and workplace is one and the same.

Related to the home-workplace conflation is the fact that domestic workers are not any type of worker. They maintain intimate relationships with their employers. Following Barbara Ehrenreich “what distinguishes domestic workers from other service workers, say, retail, hotel, or sales employees, is the intimacy of their relationship to their employers” (in Burham and Theodore, 2012:7). Most service-workers are unlikely to even know the names of anyone higher up in the corporate hierarchy than her/his immediate supervisor. In contrast, most domestic workers are employed directly by the families they serve. They work or live in their employers’ homes, and may even sleep in one of the children’s rooms.

Some employers view these workers as “members of the family”. But many other employers take advantage of this relationship, which has allowed certain abuses to occur and go unaddressed. Such abuses include workers not being paid overtime or being asked to perform extra duties without compensation. As such, many of the problems arise because domestic workers operate without written contracts.

Domestic Workers Organizations in Chicago

On May 22nd 2014, I invited Gaby Benitez, an ex-organizer and coordinator for the Latino Union of Chicago, to give a presentation in my undergraduate-seminar on Domestic Workers Economy at DePaul University. Latino Union is an organization that, among other initiatives, has created different programs to help domestic workers educate themselves about their rights, current policies, and their health and safety. Accompanying Gaby was a friend and domestic worker named Vicky. In the session, Gaby delivered a great presentation on history of the Latino Union, different aspects of domestic work, and the organization itself. She concluded her presentation summarizing some of the main findings of an empirical study on the domestic work industry conducted in 2012 by the Center for Urban Economic Development, at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The research team in charge of this study surveyed 2,086 workers in 14 US metropolitan areas. Among other findings, this study reported that 70% of domestic workers in the US earn less than $13 an hour, 28 percent of nannies are paid less than the minimum wage, the median hourly wage for live-in domestic workers is $6.15, and less than 2 percent of domestic workers receive retirement benefits. Gaby remarked that due to these conditions, domestic workers are not able to save money, are barely able to pay their bills, make payments that are regularly late, and have difficulty in buying food. Additionally, she stated that 23 percent of workers have been fired from jobs after complaining about working conditions and 29 percent of caregivers surveyed had suffered a back injury at the time the survey was conducted.

Gaby’s presentation was followed by Vicky’s testimony. Vicky who is in her mid-50’s, worked as a housekeeper and nanny for 30 years. In her last job as a housekeeper, she lived in deplorable conditions at her employers’ house. She was given a room in the basement which was infested with rats and had a putrid smell that would waft up from the sewers at a constant interval. These conditions were literally making her sick. After a few months living and working in that home, she was forced to quit her job because of the toll it was taking on her health.

In Chicago, “Latino Union” and “Arise” have joined the fight for domestic workers’ rights and better working conditions. Both organizations provide training on how to use green products in the work area, operate computers and other technology, and offer English classes. Besides this, they offer workshops that teach domestic workers how to build and paint and do certain tasks on the job. By doing this, the organizations guide and support domestic workers in acquiring better skills for themselves and become educated professionals in the workforce.

Domestic Workers Bill of Rights

Both Latino Union and Arise are also part of a larger movement that has started recently, more precisely in 2010 in New York. The battle was long and hard, but after six years of organizing together with unions, employers, and community organizations, the New York State Legislature passed the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights on July 1, 2010. This was a crucial step towards building a national movement in the struggle for labor rights, the protection of the workers, and an end to exploitation and abuse.

Under this bill, domestic workers in NY were finally recognized as part of the workforce. The bill includes the following protections requiring employers to: provide one day of rest per week, one meal and one rest break a day, pay no less than the minimum wage, pay for all hours worked, give paid time off, keep a contract, and provide a workplace environment free from sexual harassment, A similar bill in California was vetoed in 2012.

In 2013, was the turn of Hawaii, and very recently this year of Massachusetts to pass the Bill of Rights. Domestic workers in the Chicago area are ready to join this movement, to no longer stay hidden in the home. They need organized support, steady advocacy, and collaboration between many different groups, organizations, institutions, and individuals.

In sum, the labor provided by domestic workers is the labor that makes all other work possible. Today Latino Union of Chicago and Arise accept volunteers and people who wish to help domestic workers achieve their dream of being treated fairly in their working environment and in having decent jobs to provide for themselves and their own families. Finally, when you attend the AAG in Chicago this year, bring this or similar topics into debate, stand up, make a choice and change lives. Now is the time.

—Carolina Sternberg
csternb1 [at] depaul [dot] edu

DOI: 10.14433/2014.0020

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