Katti Gray

Shahida Ahmed fled Bangladesh for the United States four years ago, horrified that whoever planted a bomb to blow apart her husband’s body would come next for her. With no hope of going home again, she is awaiting a decision on her request for political asylum and earning about $300 a week as a live-in housekeeper and babysitter for an uppercrust Manhattan couple. Organizer Juan Carlos Molina, of the Workplace Project, shared with domestic workers some history of workers’ cooperatives worldwide, as the women began meeting recently to consider setting up their own co-op. Photo by Jerrilyn Hedrington At 7, Lucia* got her first maid’s job when her father placed her in service to an aunt who sharecropped for the government in their native Mexico. Now working for a childless couple in New York City, Lucia has been cleaning other people’s homes for 32 of her 39 years. Vilma Cenac left Grenada in 1994, searching for a more lucrative living than the one she eked out as a part-time postal clerk back home. In late