Today was a big day:

Started off with a meeting w/the Department of Labor to discuss the proposed Convention at the ILO on Domestic Worker Rights. The USG* is pretty progressive now, and their draft responses were incredibly close to ours. We had a couple of sticking points, but overall we are looking forward to an ally relationship with them at the tripartite discussions at the ILC in Geneva this June. The process of drafting and ratifying a Convention is long and somewhat complicated, as states try to balance between "meaningful" and "ratifiable" but it seems like we are looking good in the days leading up to the first set of meetings.

*USG in this case is the DOL-ILAB, under direction of a woman who used to work for Human Rights Watch :)

After that meeting, booked it back over the AFL-CIO to listen in on a women's delegation (made up of big and small women-focused NGO's) to strategize about Arizona's horrible new law SB1070 as well as 287g -- the goal of the delegation is to put the faces and stories of women and families in the forefront, to show the true human destruction that these laws are capable of. Families being torn apart, mothers taken away from children, a climate of insecurity, and in general, PUNISHMENT. Punishment for being women, mothers, caregivers, who came to the US to earn money to take care of their families.

We are in the process of meeting with congress, and pushing them to support a public hearing where these stories can be told to the public. We are also pushing for a meeting with Michelle Obama and some of these women, all in the pursuit of a Presidential Executive Order nullifying the legislation.

Stay tuned on this, but in the meantime I want to plug:

altoarizona.org

puenteaz.org

And in particular, if you can get down to Arizona on May 29th- there will be a huge rally there that this women's delegation is helping to put together. We are also looking to link to local actions so if you know of something in your town, pass it on!

There's also going to be a blog carnival thing (simultaneous topical blog postings from different orgs) but I forgot the name of the organizer of that one and will update later.

------

Now I am at home reading til my eyes fall out for this report...

Counting down til the big room move this weekend! Can't wait to wake up and see some treetops and sit in my rocking chair in the afternoon sun...

---------

PS: I love you guys! Happy Almost Birthday to Annie and Trang! And Shelley- safe travels back to India! I will send you a postcard from Europe to your ATL address.