Foreign-born maids toil in the shadows

updated 5:40 p.m. ET Nov. 2, 2007

HOUSTON - In the debate over immigration, they are virtually unheard, unseen: the hundreds of thousands of foreign-born women, many of them in the U.S. illegally, who toil in America's homes as nannies, cooks and housekeepers, changing diapers and scrubbing floors.

They are jobs of last resort for people whose other options are few.

The lucky ones earn decent wages, and build a promising future for their families.

The less fortunate, isolated and apprehensive, suffer a dismaying array of abuses — from exploitively low wages to sexual harassment. Some are forced to sleep in closets; others are threatened with deportation if they complain about overwork.

"These people can be very, very vulnerable, particularly if they're not documented,'' said Sam Dunning, who oversees social-justice programs for the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. "If there's any dispute over working conditions, they have very little recourse.''

It is, in Dunning's words, a job sector in the shadows — generally excluded from state and federal labor protections.

Experts and activists agree the ranks of household workers are swelling — likely to more than 1 million — although tallying their exact numbers and regulating their workplaces is near-impossible. Employers commonly seek off-the-books arrangements, avoiding contributions toward Social Security or Medicare, and many undocumented women prefer working in the underground economy to minimize chances of deportation.

In one particularly grim case, a wealthy couple went on trial this week on New York's Long Island, on federal charges related to the alleged abuse of two Indonesian women brought to the United States as housekeepers. Prosecutors say the women were held as virtual slaves, beaten, and paid no wages except for $100 a month sent to relatives abroad.

In a few cities, activists have begun campaigns to organize domestic workers and raise awareness of their difficulties, but traditional labor tactics — collective bargaining, the threat of striking — are not feasible.

Working conditions were harsh enough to drive Tomasa Compean away from a housekeeping job in Houston that she'd held for 18 years. Over that span her pay edged up from $30 to $50 a day, but her assigned cleaning duties kept increasing and she felt pressured to work even when sick.

"They treated me poorly,'' Compean said of the couple who employed her. "They were always asking me to do more and more.''

Compean, 58, quit and took up full-time work as an office janitor. Last year, she helped lead a strike by 5,300 newly unionized Houston janitors, mostly immigrant women, who won better wages and working conditions.

"Now, if any problem comes up, I can deal with it,'' said Compean, who came from Mexico 27 years ago. "But it would be very hard to organize domestic workers. People who work in the private houses are scared to even talk.''

Hiring household help is no longer reserved for the rich. Many middle-class families now feel they can afford to tap the vast pool of immigrants willing to work for modest wages, and many career women rely on a housekeeper to do chores for which they no longer have the time or energy.

Many of the women filling the jobs are single mothers, supporting children they brought with them to the U.S. or left behind in their homeland. Those who work as nannies often devote more time to their employers' children than to their own.

Activists in Houston, just beginning efforts to assist domestic workers, face daunting challenges. Texas is considered relatively inhospitable to labor organizing, and there are no efficient ways to communicate with housekeepers and nannies scattered in homes across the sprawling city.

"The women who live in have the worst stories to tell, but they're the hardest to reach, working in those big houses all day,'' said Annica Gorham of Houston's Interfaith Worker Justice Center. "We need to spend time in the neighborhood, talk to them when they're out with the kids or walking the dogs.''

Activists say some of the women were brought to the United States by traffickers and become virtual indentured servants, receiving room and board but little or no pay. Employers sometimes confiscate a maid's identity papers to maximize leverage over her.

Gorham's organization has launched a pilot program encouraging domestic workers to develop new skills so they could eventually consider different jobs.

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