Domestic Worker empowerment organization celebrates their heroes, by Nathan Weiser

Care Forward, a nanny organization that works to guarantee good working conditions for domestic workers, celebrated their annual Care Heros with an award program on July 11 at Emma’s Torch Cafe. Emma’s Torch provides a welcoming space where domestic workers can relax when they are with the kids they are caring for.

The Carroll Gardens Association is a member of We Rise, the domestic worker union that is part of Care Forward. We Rise brings together domestic workers, employers, community allies, elected officials and government agencies to ensure a care system is created that works for everyone.

Three of the Care Hero Awards from around the community went to the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store, Hopalong Andrew and Take Root Justice.

I will take care of you

Marguerita Aristide is a nanny who nominated her employer for a care hero award. She has been with Julia Finegan’s family in Park Slope for five years and was previously with another family in Cobble Hill for seven years.

Aristide said that Finegan is compassionate, caring, generous, sympathetic, appreciative and praised her communication skills. She appreciates how well her employer treats her.

“What made me feel so passionate about Julia was during Covid, when everybody was worrying, she ensured me that I would be okay and that we will take care of you,” Aristede said.

Besides nannies and employers, an award went to Naoki Fujita, the senior staff attorney on the workers’ rights team at Take Root Justice.

Take Root Justice provides legal services for domestic workers. The  practice is often focused on wages but they have done a lot of work on discrimination. Fujita remarked that it was amazing to see these nannies and employers working together. Usually when he gets cases referred to him they are not good employer relationships.

“We have been winning about $250,000 a year for domestic workers in the last four years,” Fujita said. “Basically every four years, we collect about a million dollars in lost wages.”

At the the end of the evening, Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon and Councilwoman Shahana Hanif received awards for their advocacy for domestic workers.

The Assembly Member has been advocating for and has been in support of Care Forward since the beginning in 2021. She recently advocated for the Empire Act, which will increase enforcement of worker rights.

“Simon is an annual care hero for supporting domestic workers and all types of workers,” said Ben Fuller Googins, who is the deputy director of Carroll Gardens Association. “We are grateful that you are in the neighborhood and have our backs.”     

Simon thinks CGA is terrific and does work that needs to be done. She is happy to support them. Wage theft is an issue she works on.“

You mentioned the Empire Act,” Simon said. “We are not there yet but that would make a big difference in the lives of people who have lost wages. It gives them a right to go forward themselves and collect those wages and really gives power to that.”

As part of the evening’s program, domestic worker Doris Tapia did a dance from her home city of Cusco, Peru with traditional music. Tapia is the coordinator of the We Rise nanny trainings and has helped hundreds of domestic workers advocate for their rights. She received the first Care Hero Award.

Marissa Zanfardino is an attorney who practices employment law. She created contracts that are used by the nanny group.

“We outlined clear tasks and job responsibilities,” Zanfardino said. “We outlined pay and pay rates. Something that is additional that we included was any benefits, for example, transportation benefits, if they are going to give an employee an MTA card.

Domestic workers aren’t usually given health and dental insurance but it’s an option in the contract to try to incentivize raising working standards. They include law and recommendations and they hope people will follow the recommendations.

They included wage statements, which is a statement of hours worked, overtime hours and each time wages were paid, which helps ensure wage theft doesn’t occur.

“Something we really wanted to outline, which we took from workers recommendations, were the leave benefits, whether that is sick time, vacation time and days of rest,” Zanfardino said.