Labor organizer Ai-jen Poo named 2014 MacArthur 'Genius'

Receives unrestricted $625,000 grant to support ongoing work.



Congratulations to labor organizer Ai-jen Poo, who has been named a 2014 MacArthur "Genius." Each year, the MacArthur Foundation gives "unrestricted $625,000 fellowships to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction."

Meet The 2014 Winners Of The MacArthur 'Genius Grants'

As executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Poo has been organizing housekeepers, nannies and home health aides to expand workplace protections. Her work with domestic and private-household workers in New York led to new laws that have spread to several other states.

Here's more on Ai-jen Poo and her awesome work:

South Bay First Thursdays Presents Part of the Family: The Battle for Domestic Workers' Rights

Wednesday, September 10 at Santa Clara Valley Labor Center



Yo, San Jose. On Wednesday, September 10, join South Bay First Thursdays for "Part of the Family: The Battle for Domestic Workers' Rights," an evening dedicated to the rising domestic workers' movement for equity. Attorney and freelance writer Sheila Bapat is the featured speaker for the event, which is co-hosted by Working Partnerships USA and Mujeres Unidas y Activas. Here's more info:

Wealthy couple sued for holding domestic workers as slaves

Lured from Indonesia, victims seek damages for years of exploitation and abuse


This week in Los Angeles, three Indonesian women filed a lawsuit alleging that a wealthy businessman and his family fraudulently lured them to the United States to serve as domestic workers and then essentially held them for years as slaves, subjecting them to unlawful and inhumane working conditions and abuse.

Arrested for Human Trafficking, Wealthy Local Couple Sued for Holding Three Domestic Workers as Modern-Day Slaves

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that businessman Hendra Anwar and his wife Astati Halim forced the victims to perform grueling manual labor, denied them fair compensation, withheld their passports and used threats and other psychological abuse to prevent the women from escaping.