Three labor leaders in New York - Ai-jen Poo, Bhairavi Desai, and Sara Horowitz - have built organizations advocating for workers not protected by labor laws, such as domestic workers and independent contractors. Despite barriers to collective bargaining, their organizations have recovered unpaid wages, organized strikes, and lobbied for new laws and benefits. With over 100,000 members combined, they have achieved successes like establishing health insurance for freelancers. National labor leaders have supported their efforts to extend protections to vulnerable workers.

1. THE LABOR ENGINES THAT COULD<br />Labor Day 2009 is time to spotlight three twenty or thirty something ( never ask a lady’s age ) female labor leaders that are placing the American Dream and a ticket to the Middle Class in reach of groups of male and female workers in New York State. What makes their organizational and economic achievements remarkable is that they are succeeding despite the impediment of being denied the tool of collective bargaining that gave America its great Middle Class and the oft taken for granted labor standards like overtime pay and a day of each week. They are the Little Engines that Could from the children’s’ book by Watty Piper.<br />They cannot collectively bargain or build a union treasury through union dues payroll deductions from their members because Federal and State labor laws law have not kept up with the times to permit these important tools for workers labeled independent contractors or domestic workers. They have become adept at using available legal and organizing tools to empower their members. They lobby, use the internet, rally, and listen to and inspire their members. They know that their organizations are only as strong as the support and trust that flows between them and their members.<br />Ai-jen Poo helped found the the Domestic Workers Union in 2000. Since then she has mobilized 2,300 members and helped recover a half million dollars in unpaid wages for domestic workers. After five years of rallies and lobby trips to Albany, Ms. Poo hopes and believes that a New York State Domestic Workers Bill of Rights will become law in 2009. The bill would require domestic employers to provide a day of rest and overtime benefits just as all other employers (other than farm employers) must by law. Because collective bargaining is illegal and impractical for domestic workers and employers the bill would provide benefits like severance pay and sick days for an estimated 200,000 nannies and housekeepers. <br />Bhairavi Desai leads the New York Taxi Workers ( NYTWA )) Alliance, an advocacy group to which a quarter of the city's 40,000 licensed cab drivers belong. These drivers are labeled independent contractors by law and thus are not permitted to organize and collectively bargain under Federal or State law. Undeterred, in 1998 NYTWA put itself on the map when it organized a 24-hour work stoppage—the first cabbie strike in three decades—over a series of controversial regulations imposed by Mayor of New York City. In September 2007, the NYTWA organized a two-day strike taxi strike. NYTWA lobbies the New York City Council and Mayor for fair treatment of taxi drivers and is determined to improve the low rate of health insurance coverage for taxi drivers.<br />Sara Horowitz founded the organization that is now the Freelancers Union 1995 to represent the needs and concerns of the growing independent workforce not protected by Federal and State labor laws or the New Deal safety net. The Freelancers Union now has 100,000 members and provides health benefits to 20,000 New York members under the only truly portable health benefits plan available to independent workers in the country. This year she led a successful lobby effort to repeal the New York State and City laws that authorized and imposed the outdated double taxation of freelancer income under the New York City Unincorporated Business Tax. <br />These leaders have built and achieved with the help of the more established Labor leadership. National AFL-CIO and New York State AFL-CIO Presidents John Sweeney and Denis Hughes rallied for domestic workers in Albany. The New York City Central Labor Council affiliated the NYTWA. The Freelancers Union has drawn from the banking and insurance innovations of the New Deal era union leader, Sidney Hillman, and received encouragement from national union leaders that recognize that freelance status can be used as a weapon by “low road” employers to undercut hard won employee labor standards. <br />This Labor Day we should celebrate what has and will be achieved by the organizations built and led by these women as another woman, Lillian Roberts, the leader of District Council 37 of AFSCME, steps off the New York City Labor Day Parade as Grand Marshall. <br />Richard Winsten Esq is a partner in Meyer, Suozzi, English, and Klein PC. and represents the Freelancers Union and Domestic Workers Union as a consultant and lobbyist.<br /> <br /> <br />