Centering Interdependence: Bringing a Disability Justice Framework to Organizing Employers of Domestic Workers

Over the past three decades, the domestic worker movement has gained significant momentum coinciding with an increased demand for home care, drawing greater attention to the U.S. care economy. While most research has examined the critical role of domestic workers, far less has explored employers’ roles–particularly elders and disabled people who both employ and depend on care workers. This multi-year mixed-methods case study of Hand in Hand: The Domestic Employers Network, with a focus on their New York state affiliate, the NY Caring Majority, used critical participatory action research to examine the organizing model employers used and how they navigated power dynamics within intersectional identities in their partnership with the domestic worker movement, specifically the National Domestic Workers Alliance, while pursuing affordable dignified care. Our findings reveal that as employer organizing adopted a more transformative and disability justice-oriented approach, their organizing and community shifted from a solidarity-based model to one rooted in interdependence across three key areas: strategy, vision, and campaign goals; organizing process and methods; and community and mutual aid. By centering interdependence, employer organizers advanced a framework that simultaneously challenged ableism, addressed power differentials, and built coalitions capable of reimagining and making the care economy more just.