FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Christina Coleman, [email protected]
ATLANTA – Care in Action, the national policy and advocacy home for more than 2.5 million home care workers, nannies, and house cleaners, announced today their endorsements for statewide and federal offices in Georgia.
Care in Action Georgia, which last year delivered critical support in the runoff elections for the U.S. Senate, reaching voters more than 5.8 million times over the course of seven weeks and knocking one million doors, endorsed Nikema Williams for Congress, Stacey Abrams for Governor, and Bee Nguyen for Secretary of State.
“Nikema Williams, Stacey Abrams, and Bee Nguyen share our commitment of investing in and listening to communities of women and working families who are too often left behind by policies and politicians who don’t value care,” said Heather Cronk, interim co-executive director of Care in Action. “Domestic workers – the home care workers, nannies, house cleaners and family caregivers who have kept America’s families afloat during a devastating pandemic – have the power to elect government leaders who recognize that care work is the center of our economic recovery and the key to ensuring all people can live, work, and age with dignity and respect. An endorsement from the domestic worker movement speaks volumes about these Georgia candidates – and we are ready to stand with Williams, Abrams, and Nguyen as they continue to fight for the rights of care workers in Georgia and the rest of the nation.”
“We are proud to endorse these care-first campaigns during a critical time in our history,” said Care in Action Georgia State Director Jasmine Bowles. “With voting rights, and so much more at stake, we know our candidates will fight hard every single day to ensure that every Georgian can make their voices heard through free and fair elections. We’re on the precipice of historic economic change in our country, and we know our endorsees will work, along with Senators Ossoff and Warnock, to pass legislation that will strengthen Georgia’s economy while ensuring every person in our state can get high-quality care when they need it. Home care workers, nannies, house cleaners, and their families know that Georgia can do better than we have for the last four years. They know that we can and should have a government that is smart, effective, and capable of delivering results for working people all across our state. We know we won’t get that if we don’t have care leaders in charge. There’s a clear choice in this election, and we look forward to mobilizing the domestic worker movement in support of these candidates.”
Care in Action, a 501(c)(4) organization, believes that women of color voters are the key to progressive victories and will elect candidates that support all families and workers in policy decisions, including domestic workers and immigrants. Georgia is a place of purpose and intention for Care in Action — not only did the domestic workers’ movement begin in Atlanta in the 1880s, but Dorothy Lee Bolden also started the modern-day domestic workers’ movement in Atlanta when she founded the National Domestic Workers Union of America. Her one stipulation: every member must register to vote.
Care in Action is continuing the political legacy of the domestic workers’ movement. In 2018, under the leadership of then-Deputy Director Nikema Williams, Care in Action Georgia endorsed its first class of candidates – all women of color running for office across the state – and ran one of the largest voter-contact programs in the state in an effort to elect Stacey Abrams as governor. In 2020, the domestic worker movement contacted voters 27 million times during election season, followed by nearly 6 million voter contact attempts during the Georgia Senate runoffs, helping Georgians send Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock to Washington and giving Democrats control of the U.S. Senate for the first time in six years.
Care in Action was founded in 2016 at the request of domestic workers who knew they needed to build political power to fight back against the previous administration’s attacks. The endorsements announced today were made after extensive discussions among domestic workers in Georgia and a meeting of Care in Action Georgia’s Workers Committee, which unanimously endorsed all three candidates.
Care in Action is the policy and advocacy home for women who care, working on behalf of more than two million domestic workers and care workers across America. Among the fastest-growing sectors in our economy, domestic workers are also among the most vulnerable and undervalued. As a mostly women and majority women of color workforce, this growing constituency consistently and overwhelmingly supports progressive values in American political life. Learn more at www.careinaction.us.