National Domestic Workers Alliance

The National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) is the largest national organization of domestic workers in the United States, representing approximately 2.2 million nannies, housecleaners, and home care workers — a workforce that is majority women of color and immigrants and that has been historically excluded from foundational U.S. labor protections. Founded at the U.S. Social Forum in 2007, NDWA has grown to include 4 local chapters and 63 affiliate organizations, alongside a direct individual membership maintained through an online platform. Its central mission is to win dignity, respect, and rights for domestic workers through organizing, legislative advocacy, cultural change, and — increasingly — worker-centered technology.

Policy wins and organizing

NDWA's signature legislative achievement is the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights framework, which extends workplace protections — overtime pay, one day off per week, freedom from sexual harassment, and safe working conditions — to workers historically excluded from the National Labor Relations Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act. The first such law passed in New York in 2010, the culmination of a decade of organizing by Domestic Workers United — a predecessor organization co-founded in 2000 by Ai-jen Poo, who has led NDWA since its founding and is now its President. California followed in 2013; as of 2026, eleven states plus multiple cities, including Seattle, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia, have enacted equivalent protections. Federal campaigns have focused on extending FLSA overtime and minimum wage coverage to home care workers; in September 2025, NDWA filed agency comments alongside the American Civil Liberties Union opposing a proposed rollback of those protections. Jenn Stowe serves as Executive Director; Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, has served as Director of Strategy & Partnerships.

AI and algorithmic management work

NDWA's engagement with AI operates at two levels: advocacy against algorithmic systems that harm domestic workers, and active development of worker-centered AI tools.

On the advocacy side, NDWA has documented how algorithmic scheduling, shift-matching, data collection, and client-monitoring tools are increasingly deployed by home care platforms, often without workers' knowledge or consent, shaping their hours, pay, and access to clients. In 2024, NDWA leaders and elected worker council members traveled to Silicon Valley to understand how AI might affect domestic work, concluding that emerging systems risked deepening existing power inequalities and that a proactive worker-led response was necessary. The Roosevelt Institute highlights NDWA as a Tier 3 worker-powered AI governance organization — building solutions with workers rather than simply reacting to harms — and describes NDWA's policy position as centering "democratic governance models" including routine audits of algorithmic impacts, shared oversight boards, and training pathways enabling frontline workers to influence technology decisions. In the 2025 legislative session, more than 350 AI-related bills addressing workplace technology were introduced across 40+ states, tackling algorithmic management, automated decision-making, electronic monitoring, and worker data protections — a policy context NDWA has actively engaged.

On the technology side, NDWA operates NDWA Labs, its internal innovation arm. The flagship product is Ask Aya, an AI-powered platform launched in March 2026 as the core of a new online Membership Center. Built in co-design with more than 1,000 domestic workers and supported by the GitLab Foundation, Ask Aya uses retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to provide state-specific guidance on workers' legal rights, wage negotiation scripts, contract templates, Know Your Rights training resources, and workplace-communication coaching. Worker councils were convened to shape both product and governance decisions throughout development. At the Clinton Global Initiative in September 2025, NDWA committed to reaching approximately 220,000 domestic workers — 10 percent of the U.S. domestic workforce — on the platform by 2027. Ask Aya represents a rare case of a labor organization building its own AI system with explicit worker-governance structures, rather than merely responding to employer-deployed technology.

Structure and funding

NDWA is a U.S. nonprofit headquartered in New York City with offices in Washington D.C., Durham, Chicago, Oakland, and Atlanta. It operates alongside a 501(c)(4) affiliate for political and voter-mobilization work. Major institutional funders include the Ford Foundation, which awarded $19.2 million across six grants between 2020 and 2025, the MacArthur Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Tides Foundation. The GitLab Foundation funded the Ask Aya project specifically. Ai-jen Poo received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2014 in recognition of her organizing work.