National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA)

It contends that such roles are “deeply rooted in the history of slavery,” and that this history continues to influence public policy related to domestic work in the modern era. ²

Background

The groundwork for the National Domestic Workers Alliance was laid in the late 1990s, when Ai-jen Poo began to organize domestic workers. ³ Poo and three other left-wing activists would found Domestic Workers United as an advocacy group in 2000, with the NDWA growing from the effort in 2007. ⁴ Poo took over leadership of the NDWA in 2010.  ⁵

The NDWA works at the local level through more than 70 formal chapters or affiliated local organizations in 22 states. ⁶ Notable state and local-level affiliates include the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), CASA de Maryland, the Chinese Progressive Association, TakeAction Minnesota, the Puente Human Rights Movement, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), Filipino Advocates for Justice, Mujeres Unidas y Activas, the Miami Workers Center, We Count, the Alliance of Filipinos for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment (AFIRE) Chicago, Arise Chicago, Latino Union of Chicago, the Brazilian Worker Center, the Wind of the Spirit Immigrant Resource Center, Adhikaar for Human Rights and Social Justice, the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, the Fe y Justicia Worker Center, Casa Latina, and the Fair Work Center. ⁶

It lists its national coalition partners as Care Can’t Wait, Caring Across Generations, the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations, Hand in Hand, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), We Are Home, the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and Cornell’s ILR Worker Institute. It also partners with the Institute for Policy Studies, with which it has published co-authored issue research and policy development papers. ^{7  8}

Role Within Organized Labor

The National Domestic Workers Alliance has been characterized as part of an “alt-labor” movement supported by labor unions and major left-of-center foundations to reverse the long-term decline in labor union membership by unionizing workforces that had not traditionally engaged in collective bargaining.  ⁹ Much of this effort is associated with worker centers such as the NDWA, which are not officially unions and therefore can engage in organizing and political activism outside the legal guardrails and requirements placed on traditional labor unions.  ⁹

The NDWA has been funded by a number of supporters of the worker center movement, including the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, Assets Under Movement (formerly the Amalgamated Charitable Foundation), and the Marguerite Casey Foundation, as well as the AFL-CIO and major labor unions, including the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). ¹⁰

Programs and Activism

Labor Union Organizing

The National Domestic Workers Alliance works with labor unions to identify, engage, and organize workers to form or join a union. ¹¹

As a worker center, it is not restricted by many of the limitations placed on registered labor unions by the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 (often known as the Taft-Hartley Act), the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) of 1959, and other federal and state laws and regulations on union activities.  ⁹

We Belong Together

We Belong Together is a project of the NDWA formed in 2010 to oppose since-overturned Arizona legislation that would have involved state law enforcement in immigration enforcement. ¹² The campaign emphasized its opposition to the removal of any non-citizen parents of American-citizen children.  ¹²

Caring Across Generations

Caring Across Generations began as a joint campaign of the NDWA and Jobs With Justice to promote left-of-center public policy related to home health aides and caregivers, becoming a standalone organization in 2024. ¹³

It seeks further expansion of government control over healthcare, mandated paid family leave, government-run childcare, and government-controlled home care for the elderly and infirm. ¹⁴ It opposed efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare.  ¹⁵

Ai-jen Poo remains its executive director, and her co-founder Sarita Gupta, who is now the vice president for U.S. programs at the Ford Foundation, continues to sit on its board. ¹⁶

Immigration Advocacy

The NDWA’s “Families Belong Together” campaign opposes the Trump administration’s immigration policies, especially in cases where immigration deportees were separated from their family members. ¹⁷

The NDWA broadly advocates for expanded immigration and the protection of illegal immigrants against removal from the United States, and has organized or participated in political demonstrations against the Trump administration’s immigration policies.  ^{17  18}

Domestic Work Regulation Advocacy

The NDWA supports the creation of so-called “Domestic Workers’ Bills of Rights” at the federal level and in state and municipal legislatures. ¹⁹ The proposals mandate expanded overtime pay, paid time off, and anti-harassment procedures to cover domestic employees. ²⁰

The NDWA regularly lobbies for such legislation, and the organization was part of the successful effort by its California state affiliate, the California Domestic Workers Coalition, to pass such a policy in California. The bill was signed into law by then-Gov. Jerry Brown (D) on September 26, 2014. ²¹ Similar bills have been passed with NDWA support in New York, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Illinois, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, Virginia, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, as well as the cities of Seattle, Washington; Philadelphia; and Washington, D.C.  ¹⁹ The Seattle effort was also supported by the SEIU-funded worker center Working Washington. ²²

In 2014, NDWA joined with labor unions like the SEIU and other groups in a campaign for a $15 minimum wage.  ²³

Voter Engagement

The NDWA operates voter registration, engagement, and mobilization efforts. ²⁴ It focuses its efforts on “turning out women of color voters.”  ²⁴

Strike for Black Lives

On July 20, 2020, the NDWA participated in the “Strike for Black Lives.”  ²⁵  Labor unions and other organizations participated in the mass demonstration in 25 cities to protest racism and acts of police violence in the United States and promote left-of-center racial, economic, and labor policies.  ^{25   26}

People

Ai-jen Poo

The National Domestic Workers Alliance has been led since 2010 by labor organizer Ai-jen Poo, whose career has been supported by a fellowship from billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros’s Open Society Institute and a ‘genius grant’ from the left-of-center MacArthur Foundation in 2014. ^{27  5}

Poo is also the co-founder and executive director of Caring Across Generations, which spun off from the NDWA in 2024. ⁵

In 2017, Poo was named to the board of directors of the Ford Foundation, one of the largest left-of-center grantmaking organizations in the world. ²⁸ She is also a board member of MoveOn Civic Action, Jobs With Justice, and MomsRising, as well as a former board member of the National Council on Aging and the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.  ⁵

Staff and Board

Alicia Garza is the National Domestic Workers Alliance’s special projects director, and has held that position since 2013. ²⁹ Garza is also notable as a credited co-founder of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, alongside two other left-wing activists, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi. ³⁰ For eight years prior to her employment with the NDWA, Garza was the executive director of People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), a San Francisco-based left-wing community organizing group now part of Causa Justa Just Cause. ³¹

The NDWA’s board of directors is made up of four representatives from its affiliates or chapters, one representative each of its housecleaner, nanny, and home care industry councils, three ‘allies,’ and its president. ³²

As of 2024, the NDWA’s board chair was Crystal Crawford, the senior director of strategic partnerships at the Weingart Foundation. ³³

Funding

The National Domestic Workers Alliance receives funding from a number of left-of-center foundations, advocacy organizations, labor unions, and other funders.  ¹⁰ Some of its largest donors in recent years have included the Ford Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Tides Foundation, and the Gates Foundation.  ¹⁰

Other notable donors have included Assets Under Movement (formerly the Amalgamated Charitable Foundation), the Marguerite Casey Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the NoVo Foundation , NEO Philanthropy, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Rockefeller Family Fund, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, the AARP, the American Council of Learned Societies, Bend the Arc Jewish Action, Blue Meridian Partners, the Bafrayung Fund, the Bread and Roses Community Fund, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, the Center for Law and Social Policy, Clean and Prosperous America, the Common Counsel Foundation, Demos, the Economic Policy Institute, the Entertainment Industry Foundation, Family Values at Work, the FWD.us Education Fund, the Hopewell Fund, ImpactAssets, the Jewish Communal Fund, the Jobs with Justice Education Fund, the Liberty Hill Foundation, Lever for Change, Make the Road New York, National Immigration Law Center, National Philanthropic Trust, the Network for Good, the New Venture Fund, the National Women’s Law Center, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the Proteus Fund, the Robin Hood Foundation, RSF: Regenerative Social Finance, The Skoll Fund, Supermajority, the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, the Battery Foundation, the Urban Institute, the Tides Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, The Workers Lab, the United for Respect Education Fund, the Women Donors Network, the Workers Defense Action Fund, the Workers Defense Project, Working Partnerships USA, and a wide array of community foundations, donor-advised fund operators, and other pass-through donors. ¹⁰

In 2020, the NDWA received a $47,200 grant from Harvard University for a “sponsored research sub-award.” ³⁴

The National Domestic Workers Alliance’s funding growth accelerated sharply after the COVID-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, with major foundations beginning or dramatically expanding grants to the organization. ³⁵

Its revenues in 2020 exceeded $78.1 million, more than six times its 2019 revenues of $12.5 million and more than triple its previous annual revenue peak of $21.6 million in 2017.  ³⁵

The NDWA’s long-time major supporters at the Ford Foundation reported awarding $19.2 million across six grants to NDWA between 2020 and 2025. ³⁶

During 2020 and 2021, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation gave the NDWA a total of $10,302,643 in grants, some of which were made as matching grants to contributions from other donors.  ³⁷

Between 2020 and 2024, the left-of-center pass-through donor Tides Foundation made $2,164,849 in grants to the NDWA for “equity, human rights, and economic empowerment.”  ¹⁰

The Gates Foundation awarded he NDWA $1,944,938 across five grants between 2020 and 2023. ³⁷