For $8 an hour, B.O., a Kenyan immigrant who asked the Texas Observer to use only her initials for fear of workplace retaliation, once cared for six elderly patients in a Houston group home for as many as 90 hours a week—without any overtime pay. Every day from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m., she fed, bathed, monitored, and administered medication to the patients. If no dayshift worker arrived to relieve her, she said, she continued working through the next day and night. Her wages were so low that she got a second job cleaning homes.
Over time, B.O., who’s employed in an industry that’s notorious for exploiting women of color and immigrants, learned to protect herself. She now tries to secure a contract before starting work, to refuse extra duties, and to demand better wages and overtime pay. She’s even organized other domestic workers.
“It takes a toll on you,” she said. “By the time you try to get a nap, you have to start going back to work again. … You can’t do anything else because you’re so tired.”
