As Erika Chávez cleans kitchens, bathrooms and other surfaces in San Franciscans’ homes, the 39-year-old keeps her health and labor rights in mind. That wasn’t the case back when she arrived from El Salvador.
Like thousands of immigrant women with limited English and low education levels, Chávez was funneled into a high-risk occupation that brought her into contact with toxic products. 81% of housecleaners in California are Latina immigrants, and safety protocols are rarely provided to them.
Chávez had no idea that the work elevated the risk for even a healthy immigrant to develop breast cancer, severe lung damage and endocrine disruptions, according to a report from Breast Cancer Prevention Partners.
Now, 10 years later, she suffers from asthma — but Chávez has stepped into a key role, educating her fellow domestic workers on exposure to toxins as a trainer and health promoter at Nuevo Sol Day Labor and Domestic Worker Center.
“For me, it’s a passion to teach others how to protect themselves, because so many of us still believe bleach and Pine-Sol don’t hurt us,” she said, adding, “So many of us don’t know our labor rights, or that organizations [like Nuevo Sol] even exist.”
Training program
Once a month, Chávez is front and center, training her peers on toxic product safety. Just like the other local domestic worker hiring hall, Colectiva de Mujeres, Nuevo Sol requires new members to complete health and safety training.
The program through which Chávez educates is a San Francisco original. Its community-based peer training model for domestic workers was first envisioned by Oakland’s Mujeres Unidas y Activas, and put into action by Guillermina Castellano in 2003, when she formed part of the leadership at the Colectiva de Mujeres.
Castellano, who is now co-director of Nuevo Sol, remembers “domestic workers showing up with bleach-stained clothes — they smelled of bleach. Some of them had lingering coughs or a runny nose, others itched all over their body.”
When she took their concerns to the City’s Department of Public Health, the group received a small grant to develop training on how to use less-toxic products and how to create their own trainers. “El pueblo salva al pueblo (We save ourselves)”, Castellanos often says.
Academic studies, legislative investment and tangible labor law enforcement show the program is extremely successful.
“Within six months of a structured peer-lead training, researchers tracked a significant increase in the number of domestic workers who successfully negotiated higher wages and better working conditions,” found a 2024 Cornell University study.
Workers who have taken such trainings with a trusted peer quickly adopt safer habits like reading product labels, utilizing less-toxic DIY alternatives (like vinegar and baking soda) and making proper use of personal protective equipment, according to a report from Seattle’s Casa Latina, which hosts similar peer- run workshops.
Rather than relying on top-down guidance, the San Francisco Department of Health and the City’s Environment Department partnered with the Latina domestic worker community to work on their shared goal of reducing public exposure to toxic chemicals.
The City provided initial training materials, and continues to provide factsheets on safer cleaning products, said Pauli Ojea of the Environment Department, who partnered with Castellanos in 2003 to structure the original Colectiva de Mujeres training program.
Peer to peer
The program’s peer-to-peer approach has been key to its success.
“If a Latina housekeeper is training a worker like herself, there’s more credibility because there’s the sense that we are like neighbors, or sisters or aunts to each other,” said Castellanos. That comfortable atmosphere, she added, makes it easier for domestic workers to bring up issues like wage theft, an all- too-common practice in their industry.
At Nuevo Sol’s training last month, Diana R. complained that her employer was refusing to pay $200 owed to her because she stained the carpet with a drop of bleach. Castellanos said Nuevo Sol is now teaching the worker how to lodge her own complaint with the City’s Office of Labor Standards Enforcement.
Despite the program’s success, most of San Francisco’s 4,500 to 5,000 domestic workers — many of whom are recently arrived immigrants — are not organized. Every week, Nuevo Sol and La Colectiva’s outreach committee members, including Chávez, go to laundromats, shelters, street corners and BART stations to recruit new members.
Chávez recruited Ana M., a Honduran domestic worker, outside a McDonald’s with her three kids. The new recruit shared with the training group that her husband complains their home reeks of Fabuloso, a toxic cleaning product sold to Latinos under a wholesome name.
“I’ve told him over and over again that I use it because it makes the house smell so clean. But,” she told Chávez, “now I know better.
