In 2017, about a week after the massive Tubbs wildfire destroyed parts of Santa Rosa, house cleaner Socorro Diaz got a call from one of her clients. They asked her to work at their home, which was still standing next to incinerated buildings in the Fountaingrove neighborhood.
When Diaz arrived, she found the house full of ash. She said she didn’t have a proper mask or gloves to clean what she would soon realize was toxic residue. And after days of handling and breathing it in, her skin itched, her head hurt and her nose bled.
“The sensation of the air, of breathing, hurt inside my nose,” said Diaz, 42, a mother of three children. “The smell was toxic, harmful, and I didn’t really have the right equipment.”
Under state labor law, employers of domestic service workers are not required to provide equipment or other conditions for a safe workplace, as is the case in other industries. That’s because household domestic service is not legally considered a form of “employment” — a remnant of slavery and sexist policies, according to historians. But stories like Diaz’s propelled a multiyear effort to gain full protections for this workforce, estimated at more than 358,000 people (PDF), most of whom are immigrant women of color.
Now, California has issued new voluntary industry guidelines for people who employ domestic workers, to prevent injuries and illness. Worker advocates say it’s a critical step to eventually end the exclusion of cleaners, nannies, home care aides and day laborers — who work in over 2 million California households (PDF) — from bedrock workplace regulations.
The safety guidance (PDF), published on Jan. 20, is the first in the nation to specifically cover the home as a workplace, say occupational health and safety experts.
“We are recognizing paid household labor as work worthy of protections, which is very historic,” said Eileen Boris, an author of several history books on home caregivers and other domestic workers.
Boris and house cleaner Diaz both were part of a statewide advisory committee made up of employers, workers, advocates and occupational safety experts who worked alongside state regulators to produce the official guidelines. The committee’s task was mandated by a recent law, SB 321.
Domestic service employees often report job-related sickness or injury from exposure to toxic cleaning chemicals, contagious illnesses like COVID-19 and ergonomic hazards. Because of back injuries, home attendants have injury rates comparable to those of construction workers, according to figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The new guidelines outline best practices for employers — including not to expect domestic workers to clean ash from wildfires, fix roofs, trim tall trees, clear out pest infestations or do any work that requires specialized equipment or training.
Employers also are urged to prevent injuries and illness by labeling toxic substances in a language the worker understands; creating an emergency preparedness plan for earthquakes or wildfires; offering puncture-resistant gloves to caregivers who handle needles; and removing electrical cords, wrinkled carpets and other tripping hazards.
“These are not anti-employer guidelines,” said Boris, who has hired a house cleaner for many years. “These guidelines are to make a safe home space for all who live or work within.”
Currently, any complaints by domestic workers that reach state job safety and health regulators will likely not be pursued, said a spokesperson with the Department of Industrial Relations, which oversees those regulators.
That’s because the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, known as Cal/OSHA, has jurisdiction over most workers — but not those engaged in domestic work. The exclusion is baked into the definition of “employment” in the state’s Labor Code 6303, which defines it as any trade, enterprise or occupation in which a person works for hire, “except household domestic service.”
“If the work is household domestic service, Cal/OSHA lacks the jurisdiction to issue citations,” said the DIR spokesperson, who declined to be named. “If the work is outside the household domestic service exception — for example, major construction work that includes adding a new bedroom — the Division would have jurisdiction to investigate and issue citations.”
Federal OSHA does cover some domestic service employees: those who are hired by a company, but not those hired privately by an individual to work at their residence. In California, covered employees could report problems to that agency, but only if they work in areas of federal jurisdiction, such as U.S. military installations or national parks.
“Employees hired by a company which is employing them in areas of federal jurisdiction in California can complain to federal OSHA about accidents or hazards and we will evaluate the info and take appropriate action, which could include an investigation,” said Mike Petersen, a spokesperson with the U.S. Department of Labor.
The various exemptions of domestic workers from basic health and safety protections at the federal level and in most states is a legacy of slavery, when African American people were made to do unpaid domestic labor, and of sexism, which devalues work traditionally done by women, said Boris, a UC Santa Barbara professor of feminist studies.
Domestic workers were excluded from the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, a U.S. law that granted workers the nation’s first minimum wage and overtime pay. That omission continued into the early 1970s, when federal OSHA and its counterpart Cal/OSHA were created. It wasn’t until 1976 that the state began granting minimum wage and other labor protections to some categories of domestic employees.
Since then, California domestic workers have gained rights to overtime pay, paid sick leave and worker’s compensation benefits if they get injured on the job. But they continue to be excluded from state health and safety rules. Major obstacles to changing that have been concerns about privacy and anxiety over the weight of government regulation in the home, said Boris.
In 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill, SB 1257, that would have extended state occupational health and safety protections to domestic workers. In his veto message, Newsom cited concerns that the proposed legislation would add millions of homes to the jurisdiction of Cal/OSHA — a severely understaffed agency — and would be too onerous for employers.
