UH hosts advocate of caregiver workforce

The accolades keep coming for Ai-jen Poo, a 43-year-old organizer credited with mobilizing and bringing hope to a largely invisible workforce in America.

She was named one of Fortune.com’s World’s 50 Greatest Leaders and Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. She was also chosen as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and landed a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, or “genius grant.” And that’s just in the past five years.

In a fractured nation, she sees caregiving — and the need to support caregivers — as an overarching issue that can link all Americans.

The Chicago resident is in Hawaii this spring as the 2017 Dan and Maggie Inouye Distinguished Chair in Democratic Ideals at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and will give her keynote speech at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Art Auditorium.

The talk is entitled “Organizing with Love in the Age of Anger,” a reflection of the gentle approach this clear-eyed thinker brings to her cause.

She co-founded and directs the National Domestic Workers Alliance, which gives voice to legions of caregivers and house cleaners across the country and has won them some basic labor protections. She also co-directs the Caring Across Generations national campaign that supports family caregivers.

“Caregiving is one example of the kind of agenda that really brings us together as a country,” Poo said in an interview. “If you talk to anybody, from Oklahoma to Hawaii to Florida, every single person I talk to has a care story.”

“It is something that is incredibly unifying,” she said. “It is a reminder of our core humanity. And that is what we need.”

The Pittsburgh-born daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, Poo says she drew inspiration from her father, a scientist who demonstrated for democracy in Taiwan as a youth; her mother, a medical doctor with boundless compassion; and her grandmother.

Her 2015 book, “The Age of Dignity,” focuses on solutions as the United States prepares for its “Elder Boom,” with a quarter of Americans in 2030 projected to be over 65.

Caregiving — whether for children or elders — deserves support like other infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, Poo said.

“Caregiving is one of the fundamental elements supporting commerce in our country and yet it is taken for granted,” she said. “We call it the work that makes all other work possible. It’s some of the most undervalued work in our economy.”

While in Hawaii, Poo is lobbying for the “Kupuna Caregiving” bill, Senate Bill 534, SD2, which would offer some financial support and respite to family caregivers. After clearing the Senate, it passed the House Human Services Committee on Friday and now heads to Finance. Poo sees it as a first step, a model that could inspire other states.

“Hawaii has a history of being a groundbreaking state, on health care, on community colleges, on so many issues,” she said. “I think now is a time to reclaim that mantle.”

Care is a winning issue with appeal beyond partisan boundaries, she contends. She cited the example of Darrin Camilleri, a Democratic state House candidate in Michigan who made universal family care his platform last year and won a formerly Republican seat — in a district that voted solidly for Donald Trump at the same time.

Universal family care would create a public funding pool that everyone contributes to and can draw on for family caregiving and paid family leave.

In building her alliance of domestic workers, Poo and her team approached caregivers one at a time where children congregated, whether in parks, public libraries or museums. They also reached out to employers who depended on these workers, visited congregations to enlist support and collaborated with other unions.

In 2010, their efforts paid off with the passage of the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in New York City, mandating overtime pay and one day of rest per week. Hawaii followed suit in 2013, mandating minimum wage and overtime for household workers hired by individuals in private homes. Five other states have followed suit with similar legislation, according to the Alliance.

On the national level, the federal Labor Department adopted rules in 2015 that extend overtime and minimum wage protection to employees of home-care agencies who take care of the elderly, ill or disabled. But domestic workers hired by individuals and families to work in their homes are still excluded from the National Labor Relations Act.

“In the 1920s and 1930s, manufacturing jobs used to be dangerous, low-wage jobs, with a lot of immigrants doing them, and we were able to turn those jobs into real pathways to economic security,” Poo said. “That is the task at hand, to really transform care jobs into really good jobs.”

Home-care work on behalf of elders and people with disabilities is the fastest-growing occupation in the country, but the average pay remains paltry, at about $13,000 a year.

“If you take child care jobs and elder care jobs combined, many economists are projecting that will be the largest job category in 2030,” Poo said.

As far as her awards, Poo credits the thousands of people who have worked across the country to place a higher value on domestic work.

“I’ve never done anything alone,” she said. “It’s a movement of lots of everyday people who have a real stake in solutions. It’s not actually me.”

The Inouye Chair is jointly administered by the UH Department of American Studies and the William S. Richardson School of Law.