US Home-Based Worker Groups Meet With Indian Counterpart

Anne Luck, organizing director for CWA Local 1037, recently visited Ahmedabad, India, north of Mumbai (Bombay). She and representatives from the Solidarity Center and New York City's Domestic Workers United met with the Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) to learn new ways to help and continue to organize home-based workers in the United States. Local 1037 has helped organize thousands of home daycare workers in New Jersey and recently worked with CWA Local 1040 to organize 1,000 home caretakers for developmentally disabled adults. Following are excerpts from Luck's account of her trip and how it inspired her.

Being able to meet with and listen to the women of SEWA helped clarify for me the many ways we can build and strengthen leaders among our own home-based workers.  The structure of SEWA's leadership, which is developed by trade and exists within the village, is a good model that builds on the vision my union has for training and equipping the leaders of our home-based bargaining units. 

During my time with SEWA I was impressed with the depth of leadership and with the way that leadership is developed – with humility and vision.  The constant goal is pushing forward the cause of self-reliance and full employment. Instead of developing leaders who grasp for individual power, they develop leaders with a clear focus on the principles, on the struggle and on developing new leaders.

While visiting with some of the women leaders in Surendranagar, I was struck by how varied their stories were, but at the same time how deep their commitment was to each other and to the principles of SEWA. We heard from women who never had any money or assets of their own, who through SEWA and the sisters who supported them there, were able to start their own businesses.  One woman was able to secure a loan through SEWA Bank to carry out her idea of renting out bicycles – fulfilling both a need in her community and making herself self-reliant.  Another woman led the women in her village in a fight against the water company. A woman who works at her village's SEWA child care center talked about the impact it's had on the children's well-being.

Learning about the SEWA training programs and seeing the tremendous difference they've made for members inspired my own thinking about the types of training our union can develop.  Through our established core group of neighborhood shop stewards we will work collaboratively to bring affordable, practical training to our members and tie it to leadership development.

I learned many other useful things while visiting with SEWA – from the micro-pension and benefit schemes to the functioning of the self-help groups. These are programs that with minor modifications can be developed to support our own home-based workers in New Jersey.

Perhaps most important was the global perspective I was able to gain through our visit.  Seeing the constant line of visitors in and out of SEWA's doors made clear the large amount of international labor activity around home-based workers. Being in India with SEWA made me realize how very far we still have to go in organizing home-based workers in the United States. 

If it is possible for women in India to build such a strong organization over such a relatively short period of time, it is surely possible for us to build a strong coalition of direct care workers. We will concentrate on building a committee of stewards focused on organizing and the issues that affect New Jersey's direct care workers.  Through training, we will build our leaders' skills and confidence, helping them speak out publicly about the issues that matter and inspiring their co-workers to take bold stands, too.

Since my trip to India, I see organizing differently. My job has always been more than a job, but now it's even bigger than that.  It is a global movement.  It is not just about improving conditions on the job, though a strong union certainly does that.  It is about developing leaders, connecting all struggles, and ultimately changing lives.  The women of SEWA don't just make more money or have better conditions.  They have different lives.  By achieving power collectively in their work, they open the doors to achieve it in all other aspects of life.