By Alan S. Chartock

There is a new bill floating around the Legislature that would bar prosecutors and the police from confiscating condoms from “sex workers,” also known as prostitutes.

Prosecutors use the seized condoms as evidence against the prostitutes. Obviously, if sex workers use condoms, both they and their clients are protected from disease. The idea that the police are confiscating the condoms and/or using them as evidence for convicting prostitutes seems ludicrous when we know that the condoms are protecting people. Prostitution in any form is the world’s oldest profession; it will be around long after we are gone. You don’t have to be in the Secret Service to understand this truth.

Naturally, many law enforcement professionals are against changing the law. If they are convicting prostitutes, they don’t want anything standing in their way, even the public’s health.

There is a political subtext to all of this, which comes down to control of the New York State Senate by the Republicans or Democrats. Right now, just a few measly votes are needed for the Democrats to take control of the Senate. The Democrats did such a bad job running their house after they took control a few years back that lots of people were left thinking that the state was better off without them. Maybe that’s why they were kicked out—they ignored the secret of New York politics, which is that if you don’t have the middle class (they vote big time), you can’t win.

In fact, one could surmise that one of the reasons so many of us, based on the evidence, think Gov. Andrew Cuomo prefers to work with the Republicans rather than the Democrats in the Senate is that the Senate Democrats are far more progressive than Cuomo. This is a governor who goes where the votes are. He doesn’t deviate from that. His father was known for doing the opposite, and in the end, it probably cost him his last re-election effort. Just Google “Mario Cuomo death penalty.”

The middle class doesn’t appear to think or care that much about sex workers. That’s why, when State Sen. Velmanette Montgomery stood up to defend the utterly defensible condom bill, she made a point to say, “We are not endorsing prostitution.”

She went on to say, “It is simply the fact that over 100,000 people right now are infected with HIV and AIDS in New York City.”

Sometimes, doing the right thing flies in the face of good electoral politics. My bet is that the Senate Republicans see Democratic Sen. Montgomery’s bill as an early Christmas present. In fact, one has to look no further than to Montgomery’s insistence that she and her conference were not “endorsing prostitution.” When you suggest that you are not doing something, you lead the reader, viewer or listener to the conclusion that you are doing something. In other words, rather than denying something, you are probably better off keeping your mouth shut.

Let posterity record that in this case, I believe the senator is correct. Forbidding the seizure of condoms from sex workers is courageous because it is the right thing to do, even if it isn’t the politically expedient thing to do. In fact, instead of moving to the middle to get more middle-class votes, this bill risks alienating a crucial voting bloc.

If just one life can be saved by encouraging the use of condoms, this bill will be worth it. Sometimes, you just have to do what is right and not what is political. I am waiting to hear Cuomo’s position on this. Just remember, though, that I am not endorsing prostitution.

Alan S. Chartock is president and CEO of WAMC/Northeast Public Radio and an executive publisher at The Legislative Gazette.

“It’s a fundamentally conservative bill,” Nadler said to his constituents at the April 6 Community Board 7 meeting. “But from the rhetoric today, it’s a left wing, government takeover. I wish it were in some ways.”

Nadler, a prominent House liberal and supporter of a single-payer health care system, lamented some of the bill’s provisions, such as the strict anti-abortion rights language (which he said tempted him to vote against it) and the lack of a public option, the government-run health care program that will compete with private insurers.

“We didn’t get it in the end because the president didn’t support it,” Nadler said.

Nadler spoke about fighting against other provisions included in health care reform, such as the “Cadillac” tax on high-cost insurance plans. He told the crowd that he opposed the tax that is going into effect in 2018, and that Congress has eight years to repeal it.

But after explaining his gripes and criticisms, he dove into the details of reform: how people will be covered, how the plan is financed and how it will affect businesses.

Regarding benefits, Nadler said he was pleased that coverage will no longer be dropped for pre-existing conditions, and that women will not be charged higher premiums for insurance.

“We’re solving a lot of the problems,” he said.

Despite his misgivings about the bill, the most important aspect of reform is that it “saves 40,000 lives a year.”

“How can you vote against it?” Nadler asked. “Everything else is secondary.”

“That period of trying to get information about his condition was horrible,” Rinzler said.

A new law, the Family Health Care Decisions Act, attempts to address this situation. The bill would allow families and friends of medical patients to be involved in health-care decisions for loved ones who have been judged incapable of making such decisions by a physician.

The State Senate passed the bill Feb. 24, 17 years after it was introduced, and it is now awaiting Gov. David Paterson’s signature. State Sen. Tom Duane and Assembly Member Richard Gottfried, chairs of their respective chambers’ health committees, authored the legislation. Currently, New York law requires “clear and convincing evidence,” such as a living will, to allow decisions to be made on patients’ behalf.

“This is vitally important legislation that protects those who are incapacitated and powerless,” Duane said in a statement. “The [legislation] eliminates the uncertainty that care-givers face when a patient is no longer able to make decisions for him or herself, assuring that the best interests of that individual are respected.”

Rinzler praised the bill as a way to get crucial health information about a family member.

“They’ve made it possible for families to deal with bad situations,” she said.

“I am committed to creating more humane conditions on our farms,” Rosenthal said in a statement. “New York is the third largest dairy producer in the country and we have the ability to set industry trends nationwide. When we declare that tail docking is an unacceptably cruel practice, we make considerable progress toward prohibiting it everywhere.”

Rosenthal, who sits on the Assembly’s Agriculture Committee, introduced her bill in response to a Jan. 26 episode of ABC’s Nightline program that featured undercover video taken of milk cows being docked on an upstate New York dairy farm.
The practice is most often done by cauterization or by tying a rubber band around the tail to cause atrophy. While tail docking was once believed to provide epidemiological benefits and reduce infections, animal rights advocates say that the practice is cruel, and in fact leads to higher rates of infection, due to the inability of tail-docked animals to swat away flies and maggots. The American Association of Bovine Practitioners stated in 2005 that there was no scientific evidence to support the procedure.

In order to maintain power, the clique that is running the State Senate acceded to Sen. Ruben Diaz’s demand that the equality in marriage bill never reach the Senate floor. That type of unprincipled blackmail can only lead to more of the same. When the lust for power overcomes doing what is right, the acquisition of power becomes far more important.

Of course, if it is true that something like one out of every 10 Americans is gay or lesbian, this is risky business for this unprincipled crew. I once worked at a TV station where they polled and decided that only 12 percent of the people wanted sports. They cancelled regular sports in favor of something else and soon learned that the “only 12 percent” were passionate about sports and switched the channel. If all of the gay people were willing to a) turn out for the election and b) vote out the scoundrels who had deprived them of their civil liberties, it could be “bye-bye” for the fear mongers.

To cut to the chase, why would any of us want to deprive anyone else the right to enter into a loving marriage with another person? Hey, you don’t want to marry someone of the same sex, don’t do it. But why take the civil rights of another away? We know that some of these very politicians who voted against the bill have gay relatives who will be terribly hurt by all of this. As always, there will be that moment when they have to look in a mirror and say, “What have I done?”

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Alan S. Chartock is president and CEO of WAMC/Northeast Public Radio and an executive publisher at The Legislative Gazette .

For most of her seven-year career as a nanny, Anna has been fortunate to work for two families that have paid her a decent wage for roughly nine hours of work a day. Her duties usually include taking the children for a stroll or to play dates, cooking dinner in the evening and cleaning.

But even with good employers, Anna has still been denied something as basic as proper time off. The first family that hired her, she said, never provided paid sick days. Luckily for her, they weren’t needed. In fact, she was unaware that such perks were common until she interviewed for a position with a woman—a lawyer—who promised one a month.

“There’s no right to complain,” the West African nanny said.

Mary, a 60-year-old nanny who is also from West Africa, was recently let go because of the tough economy. She received no severance from the family other than a one-day-per-week cleaning gig, though she hopes the family will help her find another nanny position. She claims European families are more inclined to give severance pay. A French family in Manhattan that hired her in the late 1990s paid out $2,000 when they had to let her go.

Earlier this year, a rally on the steps of the Capitol in Albany pushed for legislation in both the State Senate and Assembly that would protect the rights of domestic workers.

While these women talk lovingly of the families that hired them, they also hear the stories other nannies tell each other in the playground coffee klatch.

“You go to a play date or park, they talk about their boss,” says Mary, a domestic worker since 1995. “I never have the problems, but some complain.”

The complaints include simple annoyances, like being barred from eating inside the boss’ home, or having to take the children outdoors every day. But other grievances are more serious: the family goes on vacation and refuses to pay the nanny for time away, or the nannies are denied paid sick days. For people on a tight budget, this lost work adds up and can force them to look for consistent employment elsewhere.

“They can’t pay rent, can’t pay for food,” Anna said. “They’ll go find another job.”

Domestic workers are guaranteed the federal minimum wage, but there are no guidelines for working conditions and rights, and few avenues to complain. Given that most of the metropolitan area’s 200,000 domestic workers are undocumented immigrants, and with job opportunities becoming scarcer, few are willing to voice an objection.

“They have to change the law,” Mary said.

Now, a coalition of domestic workers, labor unions and human rights organizations is waiting for the State Legislature to return to Albany this fall, hoping to do just that.

Patricia, a Caribbean immigrant who has been a nanny for just more than a decade, sees great value in her job. If she is late, so is her boss.

“We make other work possible,” she says proudly.

She is currently unemployed and has worked for families in New Jersey and the West Side. Throughout her career, she has seen the vulnerability of domestic workers and even the abuse that can be inflicted—intentionally or negligently—by the families that rely on their service.

Patricia says she has been a victim of physical and verbal abuse, and was denied overtime pay and much-needed time off. And because every major labor law fails to cover domestic workers or splits hairs between those who live inside and outside the family’s home, it is near impossible to recoup money.

She became involved with Domestic Workers United, a group started in 2000 that has been lobbying Albany for a bill to provide basic labor rights to these employees.

Since the bill’s first introduction in 2004, the legislation got little traction. But last year’s Democratic takeover of the State Senate brightened prospects when Staten Island State Sen. Diane Savino, a former labor leader, became the main sponsor. However, the coup this past June and month-long stalemate that ensued have shelved progress until the next session this September, at the earliest.

Depending on which bill makes it to the governor’s desk (see box)—the meatier Senate version, the basic legislation proposed by the Assembly or a combination of the two—the law aims to drastically change working conditions for a majority of nannies in the city and surrounding suburbs. The state’s labor department and the attorney general would have enforcement power over these new laws, and could prosecute employers who stiff their nanny. Most nannies are undocumented workers and thus most vulnerable to mistreatment because they are reluctant to report abuse and risk exposing their immigration status.

Workers march on the Upper East Side on April 25.

The bill legally defines a domestic worker as a person of legal age who cares for a child or elderly person in someone’s home, so as to not inadvertently cover babysitters and minors. Rights outlined in the legislation will likely include a guarantee of at least one day off a week, sick days, a yearly weeklong vacation, paid holidays and time and a half for overtime.

“We’re not asking for more than any other worker,” Patricia said.

Actually, they are not asking for anything more than the rights already given to the small percentage of legally documented nannies who are placed through agencies (a Domestic Workers Union study found that only 16 percent of those surveyed were placed through an agency).

The New York Nanny Center, Inc., for example, screens both the families and the nannies and draws up an agreement between the two before the match is made. This agreement spells out the number of days the nanny will work with a maximum of five days a week, responsibilities, two weeks paid vacation and major holidays, plus any other conditions the nanny and family want to make.

“I think that in most licensed agencies, there is an expectation that there is a fair job description for the nanny,” said Carol Solomon, director of the New York Nanny Center, Inc. “Agencies are trying to establish what’s fair for everybody so nobody is taken advantage of in these situations.”

The change would be a significant one for non-agency nannies. Domestic Workers United released a survey that showed that the majority of nannies interviewed don’t get overtime pay, health insurance or contracts that outline their responsibilities. The survey is one of the few glimpses legislators in Albany have into this profession, because the government provides so few statistics.

“The workforce isn’t registered anywhere,” said Ai-Jen Poo, lead organizer for Domestic Workers United. “All this invisible labor…is not accounted for and makes it difficult for us to advocate for protection because it’s not even seen.”

In an April rally at the Capitol, author Barbara Ehrenreich, who documented her own undercover work in unskilled professions, held a press conference to promote the cause. Former nannies gave testimonials about their mistreatment, and some even showed legislators photographs of physical abuse victims.

“We had to educate them on exploitation and present cases to them,” said Joycelyn Gill-Campbell, a former nanny and full-time organizer with Domestic Workers United. “Give them first-hand information.”

Passing a law is only the beginning, though, as enforcing regulations that govern workers inside the home could prove problematic as well. The bills currently under consideration would have the state labor commissioner report on the feasibility of implementing paid vacation and sick days, severance pay, collective bargaining and other provisions for domestic workers. A state task force would also be created to study how to reach out to employers and nannies.

Domestic Workers United, the lead group lobbying for the law, also plans to launch an education campaign with help from the state’s justice department.

“We have to do creative outreach. We have to work with churches and synagogues,” Poo said. “The industry is very decentralized.”

Perhaps it is unfathomable for famously liberal Manhattanites to deny supporting paid time off and overtime for their nannies. There are many that do so already. While the new law would hit families in the wallet at a time when they may be evaluating if they can afford such help at all, the benefit would be clear rules on paying and treating nannies, decreasing reliance on parent blogs, forums and neighbors for second-hand, unverifiable advice. Online communities are rife with questions about paying a nanny on the books, when to give raises and compensating nannies who accompany the family on a vacation.

“There are people—Mr. and Mrs. Smith who hire a housekeeper and nanny—who feel the work they do is so vital to their family and that they deserve basic protection under the law,” Poo said. “People won’t have to go to friends or chat rooms to find out what is fair.”

*Pseudonyms were used in this article to protect the identity of nannies who are employed or looking for work.

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The Bills at a Glance

State Senate Bill
• At least one day off a week; the employee can choose to work that day, but at an overtime rate
• Six paid holidays
• Seven sick days
• Five vacation days
• Employer must give a two-week notice of termination
• Imposes civil fines or imprisonment
• Allows domestic workers to sue for underpayment or lost wages; the attorney general or Department of Labor can bring a lawsuit on behalf of a domestic worker

Assembly Bill
• Overtime pay after eight hours of work per day
• At least one day off a week
• Grants disability insurance to part-time domestic workers
• Collective bargaining rights
• Gives the Department of Labor and domestic workers wage and hour enforcement powers
• Directs the Department of Labor to form a task force to educate domestic workers and employers on new law

New York State has one of the strongest shield laws in the country to protect journalists, but only those who work in traditional media.

The bill stems, in part, from the Bronx district attorney’s attempt to identify commentators and bloggers on the New York City political website Room 8. The district attorney subpoenaed the site’s founders.

The introduction of the new bill, Duane said in a statement, shows that government recognizes the changing landscape of media. The bill would define a blog as a website or web page that contains an online journal with news and comments, and that offers hyperlinks provided by the writer.

“Enacting this legislation will ensure that those reporters who write for a blog are given the same protections as traditional print or television journalists,” Duane said. “If we don’t, we face a chilling effect on free speech and journalists’ ability to aggressively report the news.”