La Colectiva Media Campaign to Promote Domestic Worker Safety and Dignity

Members of La Colectiva will discuss the campaign and march to the site of a campaign billboard during a media event to be held this Wednesday, November 11, at 12 Noon at the Day Labor Program Offices at 3358 Cesar Chavez Street in San Francisco.

La Raza Centro Legal’s La Colectiva de Mujeres today launched a unique media campaign designed to improve working conditions for domestic workers and transform the perception of domestic work from undervalued “women’s work” to a respectable and important component of the economy.

The campaign highlights the mutual benefits that employers of household workers and the workers themselves gain from this relationship.  Employers get the peace of mind that a clean, organized home brings and extra hours in their day for other things.  Workers benefit from a good job, which they carry out lovingly and with pride.  The campaign ’s theme, “Communicating our Strengths and our Hopes,” (“Comunicando poder y esperanza”) emphasizes the campaigns goals of getting employers to think about a few steps they can take to help support solid, dignified jobs for the women.  The project includes a strong call to action for all who employ household workers to use non-toxic products that protect both the health of domestic workers and the families they work for.

The campaign is also targeting women in the community who do domestic work, to invite them to join La Colectiva and be part of this effort to overcome barriers and promote good jobs for this mostly immigrant community.  Women are invited to join an organization that will help them obtain not only jobs but “Dignity, respect, and solidarity.”

“We pride ourselves on being home cleaning experts and a voice for immigrant workers in our community,” said Guillermina Castellanos, La Colectiva member. “Members talk about the love and pride they feel in their work, and at the end of the day, what is most important is to feel appreciated for this contribution.  We promote dignified jobs, which to us means jobs that are safe, have a living wage and reasonable work loads, and for which we are respected.”

The advertising campaign includes ads directed at potential employers of La Colectiva and ads targeting domestic workers themselves.  The photographs taken by Joseph Cultice, a noted celebrity photographer, highlight the tremendous natural strength and dignity of the women, and by extension, of all domestic workers. The campaign also features ads focused on the benefits of green cleaning for both domestic workers and the families they work for, a practice in which each of La Colectiva’s members is trained.

La Colectiva employer Elizabeth Barrett said, “Theresa, the Colectiva member who comes to my house is so efficient. She really goes above and beyond—she makes me feel cared for, she’s on time. I trust her, and she really uses the time well. She is very responsible.”

The campaign launches today in the San Francisco market with the ad component running for approximately one month. The postcards and posters will continue to be distributed across the city for the next three months. The Web site www.lacolectivesf.org will be updated regularly and house the materials so that any group of Latina immigrants who wish to launch a similar campaign in their area may download them.

This project is part of a larger effort to look at the conditions in domestic work.  On Nov. 13 – 15, La Colectiva is participating in the National Domestic Worker Alliance Western Regional Congress in Oakland, CA, which will bring together 150 domestic worker leaders from around the state and country. Groups will participate in informative workshops and begin discussing a legislative campaign to promote a Domestic Worker Bill of Rights in California.

La Colectiva de Mujeres, a group of workers organized by La Raza Centro Legal in San Francisco, has spent the past year collaborating with the Labor Occupational Health Program at University of California, Berkeley, and Underground Advertising to create a campaign that includes advertisements, posters, postcards, bus sides and a Web site: www.lacolectivasf.org. (Note: high-res images of materials available to the news media).

This effort is one of eight funded nationally by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundations’ New Routes to Community Health program, an initiative that emphasizes the use of media to promote immigrants’ health and well-being, with supplemental funding from the Zellerbach Family Foundation.