NEW YORK—More than a hundred Asian American workers gathered last week to make their voices heard about the unique challenges that Asian Americans face on the job. In a historic meeting arranged by the New York chapter of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), workers defined the barriers to organizing, the need for improved community and labor partnerships, and shared successful organizing strategies.
"When my rich employer gave me a stale pizza, threw it in the kitchen table without a plate, I was convinced then that after the apartheid era, slavery and racism still exist in this country," Mona Lunot, a Filipina domestic worker said in the hearing.
Lunot added that she directly experienced slavery, abuse, discrimination, sexual harassment and other violations of human rights from the moment that she left her life in the Philippines in 2000 to become a domestic worker for a diplomat here in the United States.
A couple of weeks ago, the domestic workers movement took a step forward when the New York Senate approved a bill that will potentially give domestic workers some basic rights under the state law, rights that workers believe have been denied them since the beginning of American slavery but were afforded to every other workers sector in the country.
Lunot and her organization Damayan celebrated this victory that various domestic workers organizations have worked hard for, but they know that there is still a long way to go before domestic workers can truly have full rights and work with dignity.
"Without us, rich people will not be able to do their jobs. Isn’t it only just and right that we are treated like everyone else, like we are real workers? Like we are human, too?" Lunot asked.
Maf Misbah Uddin, founder and president of the Alliance of South Asian American Labor, agreed with Lunot and added that despite all the hard work that has been put together, there’s still a long way to go to achieve the workers’ objectives.
"Our Asian brothers and sisters are still facing every kind of unfairness, bias, discrimination, unprofessional treatment, denial of promotions and mistreatment in the hands of a callous and often indifferent management," Uddin said.
"Asian Americans are vulnerable to abuses and we are working hard to curb that. We don’t look at the immigration status of people when they report abuses. We are here to help workers and make sure that all labor laws are followed," said Colleen Gardener, commissioner of the New York State Department of Labor.
Gardener admitted that they have been seeing "a lot of abuses things that we think were eradicated a hundred years ago." She encouraged the workers to talk to them. "We don’t want to wait for violations to happen," she explained.
Margaret Chin, the first Asian American to represent Chinatown in the New York City Council lauded APALA for holding the hearing and encouraged Asian workers to come together for a bigger voice.
"It is important that we come together as a community and hopefully, with grassroots efforts, we can increase our representation more," she said.
Daisy Chung, representative of Restaurant Opportunities-New York, said that
there are more than 200,000 restaurant workers in New York City, with only about one percent unionized. About 70% of these restaurant workers are immigrants.
"Racism exists in the restaurant industry, from the front to the back of the house. Asian American women workers are sometimes exoticized. There is rampant sexual harrasment, not only from management but from co-workers as well," Chung said.
"APALA has been a growing force within the national labor movement in protecting workers’ rights to organize and advocating for the expansion of livable wages and benefits, dignity on the job and a voice in the workplace," said NYC Comptroller John Liu, the highest-ranking Asian American elected official in the city.
"The national hearing and today’s report document the thousands of workers’ stories untold that span throughout the country, acrossindustries, but among one unified community. More importantly, it outlines the priorities that will help define this new chapter of the movement," Liu added.
APALA also released a ground-breaking new report, "Breaking Ground, Breaking Silence" on shared barriers that Asian Americans face in forming unions. The hearing and report build on a national hearing in Washington, DC that resulted in increased collaboration with the U.S. Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board.
The organizers of the NY Asian American Worker Rights Hearing anticipate that the hearing will lead to increased collaboration with state and local agencies and elected officials and increased attention to the needs of Asian American workers.
"AAPI workers are likely targets of labor violations in the workplace because they may work in isolation, be less informed of labor laws, and fear employer retaliation," said APALA executive director Amado Uno. "When the workers unite to speak out about their unique challenges in the workplace, then we can begin to work with elected and labor leaders to solve these problems."
( Published June 17, 2010 in Asian Journal Las Vegas p. A1 )
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