Gov. Newsom asked to extend protections

Activists and domestic workers are asking Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign a bill that would extend safe work requirements to 13 million California households employing domestic help such as housekeepers and gardeners. Known as the Health and Safety for All Workers Act, the bill was approved by the Legislature on Aug. 2 7. Newsom has until Wednesday to act on the measure.

SB 1257 calls for the removal of a historic exclusion that denies the right to domestic workers — mainly women — to know when there are risks in the workplace, which are primarily private residences.

Workers like Vicenta Martinez know these risks very closely. She has worked for 22 years cleaning homes. She said the Malibu fires affected her in 2018 when, despite poor air conditions, ash and toxic emissions, she had to continue cleaning the two houses where she worked.

“I felt the heat and the smoke on my face and in my body, but I couldn’t say anything,” Martinez said. “The bosses never gave me a mask or gloves or any protection.” The one-way bus ride from her home in the MacArthur Park area to Malibu was about an hour and a half. She emphasized that, out of necessity, she continued to work in those houses, where she was paid about $13 an hour for about five hours.

Martinez, who has three children, said that due to the low salary she was earning, she was unable to go to the doctor or buy her own protective equipment.

“And now, it is happening again. If it’s not the fires, it is the toxic cleaning chemicals we use that make us sick,” she said. “Governor sign now. This law will protect our health and safety.” Noemí Cruz, a domestic worker for 11 years and leader of Mujeres en Acción (Women in Action), a group from the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California (IDEPSCA), said she has constantly faced health problems from being exposed to toxic cleaning liquid products.

“I feel burning in my throat, in my nose. Also, there are times when we have to lift heavy things, and it is more difficult when we are working alone in a house,” Cruz said.