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Recognizing and honoring the contributions of Dorothy Bolden to the National Domestic Workers Alliance, labor organizing, and advocacy for workers' rights; and further proclaiming October 13th as "Dorothy Bolden Day" in the City of Philadelphia.
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WHEREAS, Dorothy Bolden was born on October 13, 1924 in Atlanta, Georgia and she began working as a domestic worker when she was just 9 years old; and
WHEREAS, Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in the wake of the Great Depression, which provided monumental worker protections that created the humane labor conditions that exist in most other jobs. Although Dorothy was a teenager working as a domestic worker at the time, she would not benefit from the newly enacted legislative protections because domestic workers were purposefully excluded from the legislation; and
WHEREAS, Many understood this exclusion to be a race-neutral proxy that continued deregulation of the industry, creating a disparity between the exploitation and vulnerability of domestic workers and industries where workers were predominantly white. Despite the racist history of this exclusion, the laws remain unaltered to this day; and
WHEREAS, Although the exclusion from the NLRA and FLSA denied domestic workers federally-protected labor rights like the right to strike or collectively bargain, Dorothy Bolden rode every bus line in Atlanta to speak to hundreds of house cleaners and caregivers, organized 30,000 domestic workers to fight for better working conditions, and is considered the mother of the domestic worker movement; and
WHEREAS, As a Black woman in the height of the Civil Rights Movement, she faced racism and sexism on the job and in her life, including being arrested for refusing to work off the clock; and
WHEREAS, Dorothy Bolden is a labor and civil rights hero who was proud of her role as a domestic worker and often spoke about the importance of her labor in the work...
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