We Did It! A Historic Budget Victory for Domestic Workers
After a year of rallies, phone calls, and advocacy meetings, the New York City Council heard us and voted overwhelmingly to pass our Domestic Worker and Employer Empowerment Budget Initiative! This is a historic win for domestic workers as the government finally acknowledges the urgent need to invest funds into worker education and outreach. Establishing a new city council initiative is very difficult, and we look forward to growing the amount to increase our impact to the over 200,000 domestic workers across NYC. Read on to learn how we made this historic victory possible!
How did we win the first-ever budget initiative for domestic workers?
Storytelling + Testimonies: Centering the stories and experiences of workers was a central tactic for generating council support. During meetings and committee testimonies, workers told powerful stories about their experiences with wage theft, abuse, and harassment, and why outreach and education are so critical. Integrating storytelling principles and practice into our campaign meetings ensured we had a robust lineup of workers ready to testify throughout the campaign.
Political Education: We invest in political education not only to create better alignment and understanding for this campaign but to develop our collective muscle for future ones to come. Our weekly campaign meetings consisted of developing a shared language around terms like strategy, tactics, issues, and more. We used many of our meetings to delve into how the NYC Budget gets created, the structure of city government, and who the key decision-makers are as to shape our collective strategy and timeline.
Rallies and Direct Advocacy: We held two rallies at City Hall including our launch event where 15 council members and the City Comptroller spoke in support. These events were critical in showing our numbers as we turned out over 50 workers and employers. We also identified existing council meetings and waited outside the building to meet members and give the literature about the initiative.
Cultivating relationships with key City Council members: From the onset, we knew we didn’t have the capacity to meet with all 51 NYC council members. Understanding how the budget process works and mapping out the key decision makers we identified 15 members to prioritize in scheduling meetings with. Most of these members were on the Budget Negotiation Team, the body that oversees the creation of new initiatives. Their support was instrumental in ensuring the entire council would vote to establish our initiative.
One of our weekly campaign meetings focusing on turning your story into a effective testimony. We often used our weekly campaign meetngs as a blend of updates, strategy, political education, and skills building.
After mapping out key council members, particularly those on the Budget Negotiating Team (BNT) which helps oversee the budget process, we scheduled meetings where worker leaders told their stories on why this Initiative was so critical. This is a screenshot from a meeting with Councilmember Gale Brewer who turned into one of our Budget Champions. We scheduled as many meetings as we could with BNT members and leaders of influential caucuses like the Women’s Caucus and Progressive Caucus.
Every year the Finance Committee holds a day-long hearing where organizations across the City sign up and share why their project should be funded. We knew that turning out so the Committee members heard us was critical, so over 20 workers and employers signed up to testify, some waiting as long as 8 hours to be called.
In addition to scheduled meeitngs with Couniclmembers, we also waited outside of City Hall ahead of Council meetings so we could talk with Councilmembers and make sure they knew about our Initiative. Here are Coalition members with Councilmember Mercedes Narcisse who turned into one of our biggest advocates.
Our launch was one of our biggest in-person events where over 15 Council members attended and testified in support of our initiative. Such turnout was the result of patient and strategic relationship building with council members so they know about our initiative and how to support it. Below are more photos from our launch.
