Filipino domestic workers, who are hardworking immigrants, pushed Saturday for legislation to back workers' rights and immigration reform as they recounted their ordeals of exploitation in a survey-report.

The once passive and subservient caregivers, nannies, cooks and housekeepers are uprising, 17 cities nationwide with 33 organizations of domestic workers have joined hands to rally and pass the proposed Care Act, a bill of rights for caregivers, work standards for domestic workers and a path to legalize undocumented workers.

"We are organizing to fight for dignity and respect of domestic workers," said Ai-jen Poo, director of National Domestic Workers Alliance during the launching of domestic workers research report on migration, work and living conditions of Filipino domestic workers in New York and New Jersey.

Filipino female domestic migrant workers have toiled in the shadows of slavery.

Lured to work in America to sacrifice and support her children in the Philippines, Violeta Litongjua, said her American employer recruited her from the Philippines to work as nanny and housekeeper. They placed a newspaper ad in the Philippines seeking a nanny with tourist visa. She responded to their ad and she had to shoulder the fees to be able to travel to the United States and work in Piscataway, New Jersey. She had worked and lived with her former employer seven days a week.

She took care of their children, cleaned their home, cooked and worked from 6 a.m. until 11 p.m. for $1,000 month. She was paid an alms wage of $1.96 per hour. When she got sick with high fever, she paid her own doctor and medications because she has no health insurance. She also suffered with high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

She was paying for her daughter's college education and had been sending dollars to the Philippines.

"The hardship that domestic workers experience, especially as new immigrants, is tremendous. In my six years of being here, I can testify to the terrible quality of life that domestic workers like me endure," said Ms. Litongjua, who became homeless for two months when she lost her job. She has found a new employment as a nanny with relatively better pay now.

National Domestic Workers Alliance is a vehicle to build power nationally as a workforce. NDWA is organizing to improve the living and working conditions of domestic workers; win respect and justice from employers and government for exploited domestic workers; change the racism and sexism that has led to the persistent devaluing of this labor so that dignity of domestic work is honored.

Despite the emerging crisis in the domestic workers front, there is no political discussion on the plight of domestic workers. Congress has yet to enact a law protecting them. After the successful passage of New York State domestic bill of rights that grants vacation leaves and overtime pay for domestic workers, the struggle of domestic workers has continued. The domestic workers have continued to campaign and progress to pass the California domestic bill of rights.

Domestic Workers are the bedrock of a functioning society – they do the work that makes other work possible. They toil at home so that their employers can work in government, private offices and businesses. Yet they are a workforce in crisis.

Across the nation, the unregulated nature of the domestic workers industry and the race, gender, class and immigration-related discrimination exacerbate workplace power dynamics that deepens domestic workers' vulnerabilities to abuse and exploitation.

According to a report by Damayan (helping one another) Migrant Workers Association from 208 surveys, three out of four domestic workers have experienced one or more wage and hour violations. The report also showed that 59 percent of workers experienced non payment of overtime, 20 percent of workers did not receive minimum wage, and one out of 10 workers reported delay or non payment of wages.

The report also said three of four workers surveyed worked from over 40 to 70 hours per week, and 55 percent of workers did not receive meal breaks.

"When I came to the United States, I came on a visa to work as a nanny for a French couple working as diplomats. The job paid me $150 a week for 40 hours of work. Although my employers were nice to me, I knew that they took advantage of me because I was only paid $3.75 per hour," said Zelem Guerrero, a Filipino nanny in Manhattan.  

She said when she worked with another couple after the French couple left the United States, the economic crisis hit the United States and her new employers fired her with no notice and no severance pay.

The sacrifices of domestic workers are evident in Ms. Guerrero's ordeal.

The report said Filipino domestic workers endure poor living and housing conditions, no health care, family separation and social isolation.

"Forced by the need to support my family in the Philippines, I continued working as a domestic worker," Ms. Guerrero said.

"For too long, we have endured slave-like conditions. Even with immigration status, the lack of standards and protection in the domestic work industry, workers like me are subjected to abuses," said Ms. Guerrero.

The report written with Ninotchka Rosea, concluded that the labor and immigration discrimination against domestic workers in the United States is embedded in the regulatory systems. The exclusions of domestic workers from most federal and state labor laws – including the human right to organize – result in an unregulated, unprotected and vulnerable labor market that ultimately benefits not only America employers but more so the U.S. government.

The report said two out of three domestic workers did not receive paid sick days and 88 percent did hot have health insurance.

Most workers work even when they were ill, for fear of losing their jobs.

The large-scale migration of Filipinos negatively impacts women domestic workers, their children and families, and is detrimental to Philippine society. Fifteen percent of domestic workers in the N.Y. area are Filipinos.

Remittances from overseas workers keep the Philippine economy afloat. In 2009, remittances reached $17.3 billion, $6.5 billion of these came from Filipino workers in the United States.

"I was a doctor in the Philippines, and then I came here to the United States to work and I am cleaning, babysitting, cooking – I am a domestic worker. There, I was the one who had a domestic worker," said Mae, who declined to give her last name and who is a domestic worker in New York.

The broken immigration system is a bane and pain to domestic workers.

"In order to adjust your immigration status to a legal one, it is a long process. It takes years and it costs a lot of money. In my case, I paid $5,500 for my lawyer. All in all, in order for me to adjust my immigration status, the process took years. In just fees, alone, I paid $31,036 to the U.S. government, including back taxes," Maribeth Bautista, a domestic worker said.