‘We’re in crisis.’ Domestic workers in Miami suffer economic blow from the coronavirus
Before she “lost everything” when the novel coronavirus hit, Guadalupe, a 64-year-old domestic worker, spent one day a week at the home of six different families. She’d set up shop in the kitchen, and her job was to prepare a week’s worth of meals.
But as the spread of the virus jolted nerves and triggered official orders to shelter in place, Guadalupe’s steady source of income has run dry: All six of her employers have opted to end the cooking service, including two families for whom she has worked for more than a decade.
“They all told me it’s better if I just stayed home,” said Guadalupe, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, who declined to be identified by her full name. “They said, ‘We don’t want to take any risks, we don’t want anyone coming to the house.’ ”
Guadalupe understands her clients’ decision — despite its dire implications for her livelihood — and said she would have done the same in their place. As someone over 60 who visits the hospital three times a week, for dialysis access, Guadalupe knows it’s especially crucial for someone like her to stay safe from COVID-19.
But with no safety net to count on because of her immigration status, Guadalupe said staying home indefinitely is not an option.
“People like me have to go out and work. There’s just no way around it. And what happens if we can’t work? The bills will keep coming,” she said. “That’s why I’m very worried right now. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, the day after tomorrow.”
Out of the six families she used to work for, just one has told Guadalupe that they would keep paying her during the time she can’t come in to work.
“But that’s just one day a week that I will be getting paid,” she said. “And a $140 check just isn’t enough.”
FINANCIAL CRISIS
Rosana Araujo, a former domestic worker from Uruguay and the current co-director of Women Working Together, said many of South Florida’s estimated 95,000 domestic workers were in a precarious financial position before the coronavirus crisis.
Now, they find themselves ill-prepared for a new normal “where there is almost no work” available.
Losing even a couple of clients, “changes your life, and it immediately throws you in a situation of economic crisis,” said Araujo.
Among those struggling is Maria, an Argentine immigrant who cleans apartments in Miami; she also has recently lost six of her clients.
“There was just this one [apartment owner] who contacted me, asking if I had a fever or a cough. I said no. He told me to make a last visit to his place because it was a mess,” she said. “But everyone else has canceled.”
Coronavirus is to blame for the lost wages.
“My clients were afraid,” said Maria, who also declined to be identified by her full name. “They all know I clean other apartments, and they told me that maybe another one of my clients may have symptoms and that I could be a carrier. So for the moment, they told me to not come to work until all of this blows over.”
Maria understands the public health rationale behind sheltering at home, but she said confinement isn’t financially sustainable for workers who must leave their place of residence to earn a living. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, working from home is an option available to only 29 percent of Americans.
“One can stay home, not work, and be mindful of the new regulations, but what about our bills?” she said. “The kind of work that I do, you can’t do it on the internet.”
Like Guadalupe, Maria doesn’t expect to receive any government help. Unlike Guadalupe, Maria has not heard of any clients willing to continue to pay her until the pandemic’s disruptions subside.
“No, no one has offered me anything,” she said with a laugh. “If I don’t work, I don’t get paid.”
The chief worry at the moment is rent. Though Maria has persuaded her North Miami Beach landlord to defer rent collection until April 15, the full amount will still be due: $1,500. With her son recently losing his job at a hotel, Maria doesn’t know how the pair will come up with the money.
“The situation is more than difficult,” she said. “Right now, what worries me most isn’t the disease or my health, it’s the financial part.”
Though most employers have cited health precautions when dispensing with their help, others were forced to make that decision because of the financial instability of the moment.
“We’ve heard of employers themselves being out of a job,” said Marie François, an organizer at the Miami Workers Center. “They say, ‘I don’t need you. What do I need you for if I’m at home?’ ”
FAMILY BACK HOME
Melissa St. Hilaire made her way to Miami from Haiti a year ago.
Until March 20, she worked as an at-home caregiver for a 95-year-old woman who lives with her daughter and grandchildren.
When she showed up to work the following Monday for her usual 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. shift, she was told to go back home.
“They told me they don’t want to have someone bring in the coronavirus in her house so I have to stay home,” said St. Hilaire. “Now I need to figure out a plan B but I don’t have any plan B because everything is closed, no one is hiring.”
In addition to her struggles in Miami, St. Hilaire’s thoughts are turning to family members back home.
“I have my mom in Haiti and I’m so worried about her right now. She is 65 years old, and it’s very difficult over there,” she said.
François said coronavirus-related job losses for domestic workers in South Florida will reverberate beyond the local community and economy.
“People are worried about themselves and they are also worried about those at home. Especially the Haitian community, home is expecting everything from us and if I cannot go to work, there is no way I can help someone in Haiti,” she said. “People who care about folks back home, we are on the same page right now. If I cannot go to work, how do they expect me to send money?”
STRUGGLES OF THOSE STILL EMPLOYED
Araujo, from the Women Working Together advocacy group, said only a handful of the women the group works with are still employed.
“But when I tell you that they are working, I mean that they are cleaning one or two houses maximum,” she said. “It’s not the volume they had before.”
According to Araujo, the pandemic has brought on a new set of challenges for workers who are still active. That includes figuring out child care at a time of widespread school closures and having to incorporate more aggressive products while cleaning.
“People are getting paranoid and they are making you work with products that are stronger than before. We’re seeing a lot of chlorine-based products, all kinds of disinfectants,” Araujo said. “It really affects you, and it can impact your health.”
As a live-in housekeeper in a two-story home in Miami, Mina is taking on more intense cleaning tasks, and “using a lot of strong products.”
For Mina, an immigrant from Peru, social distancing has also brought on longer hours than before.
Whereas she could previously use the weekend to leave her employer’s house and take care of her own affairs, she’s now stuck inside seven days a week cooking, cleaning and ironing for a family of five.
“I’m exhausted, but that’s the way it is. I have to do everything,” she said. “For me it’s been a difficult time, but at least I’m still working, and thank God for that.”
According to Mina, the bigger workload has yet to translate into a bigger paycheck.
NO RELIEF ON THE WAY
Domestic workers in Miami — many of whom are among the estimated 775,000 undocumented immigrants living in the state — are “doubly vulnerable” to the brewing economic crisis, Araujo said.
“Lots of us, and I include myself in this statement, are undocumented,” she said. “So not only are we losing jobs, but we’re also not going to be getting any help.”
Araujo isn’t wrong.
Though many of them pay taxes, undocumented workers aren’t eligible for unemployment benefits or stimulus checks, a safety net reserved for U.S. citizens and for immigrants legally authorized to work in the country.
This means that not a penny of Congress’ recent $2 trillion economic rescue package, which will funnel a one-time payment of $1,200 into the hands of eligible taxpayers (that is, those with Social Security numbers), will go to workers like Guadalupe and Maria, who depend on the informal economy to make a living.
“I do my taxes with my ITIN [Individual Taxpayer Identification Number]. I try to do my part, do what’s expected of me,” said Maria. “But what about the government?”
Labor advocates across the country say the current hardships faced by domestic workers — who, regardless of their immigration status, are excluded from federal labor protections like overtime pay or a minimum wage — show why it’s important to pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, a bill introduced in Congress last year.
The legislation, which both Women Working Together and the Miami Workers Center are campaigning for as part of the National Alliance of Domestic Workers, would change federal labor laws to include domestic workers. It would also confer new benefits on them including paid leave, which advocates say would soften the crunch of policies like shelter in place, making workers less vulnerable when the next crisis hits.
“Right now, domestic workers have no recourse, they are on their own,” said François, from the Miami Workers Center. “A bill of rights would change that.”
Araujo agrees.
“This situation has at least exposed the social collapse we have on our hands,” she said. “At the moment, we don’t have rights.”
For Guadalupe, the Mexican cook, being excluded from the coronavirus relief package is something she took offense over.
“I learned about the [relief package] on TV,” said Guadalupe. “And I thought it was unfair. I do my income taxes. Where is that money going to? This is a beautiful country, and it’s given me a lot. But sometimes I say that it is too unfair.”
“Anyway, that’s how life goes,” she added. “What I’ve learned is that you always have to find ways to help others, but you should never expect anything in return. … God has put a challenge in my path and told me to keep going, and I keep going.”
HOW TO HELP
Representatives from the Miami Workers Center said that anyone looking to support domestic workers can donate to the National Domestic Workers Alliance’s Coronavirus Care Fund, which seeks to provide $400 in emergency assistance for qualifying workers.
Women Working Together is also accepting donations to help its members most in need. To donate, write to womenworkingtogetherusa@gmail.com or call 754-307-0978.
This story was originally published April 1, 2020 at 2:14 PM.
