About Us

Hand in Hand is a national network of employers of nannies, housecleaners and home attendants working for dignified and respectful working conditions that benefit the employer and worker alike.

Hand in hand staff members holding Hand in Hand's banner outside.

Mission

Hand in Hand is building a just and caring economy starting in our homes and communities. We support employers of nannies, house cleaners, home care workers, and attendants, their families and allies to understand that their homes are workplaces. We organize people to demand dignity and fairness for domestic workers, and to win public investment in care for families, people with disabilities and older adults.

Vision

We envision a world that values domestic work as fundamental to building a just and caring economy. A world that celebrates every person’s humanity and belonging, and repairs our country’s legacies of systemic injustice. A world where all people can access and afford the childcare and home care we need to live whole lives with dignity. A world in which we depend on one another, and build collective solutions together.

Core Values

Workers’ rights and dignity
Social justice and intersectionality
Interdependence
Collective power

History

Hand in Hand was founded in 2010 by a group of domestic employers and their allies who had worked side by side with domestic workers to support the passage of the New York State Domestic Worker Bill of Rights.

After the campaign succeeded, participants agreed that one key element had been the participation of Jewish employers. Organized by Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, they testified for domestic worker rights throughout the campaign. With encouragement from the MacArthur-winning labor organizer Ai-jen Poo, Danielle Feris founded Hand in Hand in partnership with Poo’s National Domestic Workers Alliance to continue to collaborate in future campaigns and efforts to address the common interests of workers and employers nationwide, whose lives are so intimately connected.

From a small, volunteer-led organization, Hand in Hand has grown into a staffed nonprofit organization with a strong national leadership, and growing influence around the country.

Work With Us

Want to work at the intersections of labor, feminism, racial justice, economic equality, immigration, and more? Then you might like working with us on the issues that affect the domestic workforce and domestic employers.

VIEW OPEN POSITIONS

Our Work

Righting a historic wrong based in racism and sexism

Although domestic workers are professionals who do real work every day, they are excluded from many of the basic protections guaranteed by the Fair Labor Standards Act to most other workers in the United States.

This is because in the 1930s, domestic workers were excluded from most New Deal-era labor laws: In an effort to control the African-American workforce, Southern politicians refused to sign legislation that included domestic workers and farm workers.

Many domestic workers still don’t earn a living wage and work without access to health care, paid sick days, or paid time off. Moreover, because domestic workers’ workplaces are inside other people’s homes, the struggles domestic workers face are largely out of the public spotlight.

Hand in Hand helps employers recognize that their homes are workplaces—and that we have both legal obligations and opportunities to make our homes workplaces that they can be proud of.

Through education, advocacy, organizing, and cultural change, we aim to address power imbalance between workers and employers and challenge the ways our culture devalues care work.

Making it more affordable and accessible to get support

Childcare and support for people with disabilities and seniors are simply unaffordable for a great number of people in this country.

Individual employers should not have to shoulder the burden that results from the lack of a comprehensive care infrastructure to support families ― and domestic workers should not have to bear the brunt of this systemic failure.

We need to transform the care industry so that all kinds of care throughout the life spectrum are affordable and accessible to all those who need it.

Who are Hand in Hand members?

We are diverse group, including:

low- and middle-income people with disabilities who employ home attendants
working parents who hire childcare workers
seniors who need long-term care
“sandwich generation” individuals who support both their children and their parents
individuals who employ domestic workers to help clean and manage their homes.

We believe that all our challenges are connected.

Why do employers join Hand in Hand?

Needing support and resources: Many people who employ domestic workers are navigating their own care needs while seeking to realize their commitment to fair employment practices.
Finding a community: This helps people combat isolation and share common experiences of employing home attendants or childcare providers, including feeling personally transformed by their relationship with the worker they employ.
Engaging in a movement with shared values: Domestic employers who seek to foster a fair workplace in their homes are often grounded in values of justice, workers rights, awareness that the personal is political, and recognition of the complexity of people’s lives and multiple identities as employers.