For this 5th Monday of the month show, join 1st Monday of the month host, Vylma V, as she talks with Bay Area activist Aixa Gannon about a recent panel linking working women of Puerto Rico with women in the diaspora working on social justice, along with an engaging conversation about women’s labor, Silvia Federici and our lockdown economy with Womens Magazine Collective members Margo and Jovelyn for the second half the show.
This Monday December 14th on KPFA Radio’s "Women’s Magazine" we look at how racial Capitalism and Patriarchy have created a punitive underfunded child care system in the U.S. where the the average hourly wage of child care workers is $10.72 per hour, many of the women in need of child care are black and brown women and few get any government support in accessing child care. This system is informed by the history of slavery in the U.S. where women’s job to reproduce the work force is required but never supported. And the reality in our neoliberal economy is that many women especially women of color are the essential workers during covid and are working 2-3 jobs just to survive and yet rarely getting any government support for child care.
Today we talk to Marcy Whitebook from the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley, Clarissa Douthard with Parent Voices Oakland and Loira Limbal director of the award winning documentary about child care “Through the Night” that shows how caregivers balance the demands of “women’s work” while navigating systemic racism, sexism and classism in the U.S. today. This beautiful film is available online at https://www.throughthenightfilm.com/ and is also showing at the Roxy Theater locally.
This week is fund drive for KPFA so please call KPFA Radio at 1.800.439.5732 or online at KPFA.org and donate any amount you can to help keep voices like this and stories about women on the frontlines stay on the air. It is because we are a listener sponsored station that we can have these radical and unheard voices on the air. So please call and support KPFA. And please share this announcement with others.
On today’s show we talk about the August 4 explosions of nearly 3,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate being stored for 6 years without any safety precautions in a warehouse at the port of Beirut. These explosions have killed hundreds of people; displaced many, many more. The body-counting continues. The explosions also rocked the political establishment when Prime Minister Hassan Diab and his cabinet resigned on August 10. Some of the most affected people include Syrian refugees, who number around one million total.
Another group is women migrant domestic workers, whose stories have not been told in any meaningful ways during the current crisis.They are women primarily from Ethiopia but also include women from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Kenya, and Nigeria, for example. They are, in practice, indentured servants or modern-day enslaved people due to the kafala system, where workers are at the mercy of their “employers.” Some have not been paid since as long ago as October 2019. As a result of the devastation of the explosion multiplying their suffering, they “just want to go back home.”
Today’s conversation is with Lara Nuwayhid, Regional Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa with the International Domestic Workers Federation, who oversees program activities that raise awareness about domestic workers and provide support for their advocacy work. She spoke to us live from Beirut.
This week on Women's Magazine, we focus on some of the most challenged workers in today's workforce: domestic workers and young women of color.
At one end of the age spectrum, we talk to members of La Colectiva de Mujeres, the San Francisco Women's Collective, part of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, about their Aging With Dignity campaign. The campaign draws attention to the situation of over half a million workers over 50 who have no retirement benefits.
Domestic workers in the U.S. are 93% female, 20% without high school diplomas, and the median age is 44. In California, 75% of the 336,000 domestic workers (doing childcare, elder care and housecleaning) are women of color. Because domestic work is excluded from the Social Security Act, only 2% of domestic workers have any retirement benefits.
Rasmea Odeh, Chicago feminist community leader and torture survivor, faces prison.
Rasmea Odeh was arrested and sexually tortured by the Israeli military in 1969, eventually confessing to a crime she didn't commit. After ten years in Israeli prison, Rasmea created a new life in the U.S., helping to found the Arab Women's Committee, a 600-member organization that helps immigrant Arab women learn English, find their voices, and support one another. Now the U.S. government is threatening to strip her of her citizenship and send her to prison for another ten years because of her past as a political prisoner. We talk about the case with Professor Nadine Naber, author of Arab America: Gender, Cultural Politics and Activism.
Call Tuesday, September 2nd to stop the deportation of Rasmea. Go to www.stopfbi.net for phone numbers. Click here to sign petition to drop the charges against Rasmea.
Author Sheila Bapat on domestic worker organizing in the U.S.
When U.S. labor protections were being created in the 1930s, domestic workers, who were overwhelmingly African American, were specifically excluded as a concession to southern Democrats. Today, the women who do domestic worker are largely immigrants, and while they have won some rights, still face harsh conditions with little recourse. But in recent years, domestic worker organizing has been one of the most successful labor movements in the country. Sheila Bapat, author of Part of the Family? Nannies, Housekeepers, Caregivers, and the Battle for Domestic Workers’ Rights, talks with Preeti Shekar.
Sheila Bapat is an attorney and writer covering economic and gender justice. Her work has appeared in Jacobin, Salon, Reuters, Slate, Alternet, Truthout, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Labor and Employment Law, PolicyMatters, and the Center for Women Policy Studies' series, "Reproductive Laws for the 21st Century." Sheila holds a JD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law.
Sunday September 7, 2014, 3-5p Claiming our Voice: South Asian Domestic Worker Organizing Held at Oakstop Coworking, 1721 Broadway, Suite 201, Oakland, CA 94612
Hosted by ASATA (Alliance of South Asians Taking Action) and Re-imagine RPE
Special Guest: Sheila Bapat, author of "Part of the Family?," a book about domestic workers' rights, Panel moderated by Preeti Mangala Shekar. For tickets and more info go to Claiming Our Voice.
Click here to listen to entire program. 59:50 min.
