Nannies, caregivers and house cleaners working in private homes in New York State have been covered since 2010 by the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, which guarantees paid overtime and one day of rest each week. Unpaid wages can be pursued up to six years back, including cash work.
In the Polish neighborhoods of New York, work inside private homes — cleaning, caring for seniors, minding children — has for decades been passed along by word of mouth, with no contract and no trace on paper. When something goes wrong, most of the women doing that work do not know that a statute written specifically for them has been on the books for years.
Work that shows up in no register
It is overwhelmingly women’s work, paid in cash, often for several families at once. The problems are as predictable as the arrangements: hours quietly trimmed, a payment postponed and then forgotten, weeks that run without a single day off. At that point the usual response is to look for another family rather than to ask what the law says.
New York was the first state in the country to change that, passing the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights in 2010. New Jersey followed with a comparable statute in 2024 — which matters in towns like Wallington and Garfield, where hundreds of Polish caregivers and cleaners work. Awareness of both laws in the community remains low.
The reason is structural rather than cultural. Information about workplace rights normally travels through unions, human resources departments and mandatory training. Work in private homes has none of those channels. Knowledge moves the same way the jobs do, by word of mouth, and word of mouth carries more myth than statute.
What the law guarantees — and what an employer may not do
The New York statute guarantees overtime at one and a half times the regular rate, one full day of rest each week, and paid days off after a year of work for the same employer. It also extends protection against harassment and discrimination to a workforce that had long been excluded from it. Separate rules govern live-in caregivers. Guidance in several languages is published by the New York State Department of Labor.
General wage law sits on top of that. In New York, unpaid wages can be claimed up to six years back, and the claim exists regardless of immigration status or the form of payment. The absence of a written agreement does not end the matter either — courts accept a worker’s own hour logs, text messages and transfer records as evidence. How to document that kind of work in practice is covered in the firm’s guide to recovering unpaid wages for cleaning and caregiving work in New York.
Expert perspective: the hardest part is the first conversation
Cases brought by domestic workers tend to arrive late. Women typically make contact only once the arrears amount to many weeks of work and the relationship with the household has already broken down. The law, though, does not require anyone to be on bad terms — and the earlier a claim is reviewed, the more of those weeks still fall inside the six-year window. More on Nicole Brenecki’s practice in wage matters can be found on her PolishPages profile with client reviews.
For the women themselves the advice is unglamorous and free. Write down the hours, keep the messages and the receipts, and do not delete correspondence with an employer. Those records are what replaces a contract that was never written.
Work in someone else’s home was treated in America for generations as invisible labor. Today there is a real statute behind it in the two states where the largest East Coast Polish community lives — which makes the awareness gap, not the law, the remaining problem. Wage and hour matters handled in Polish are listed on the firm’s directory listing on PolishPages.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Attorney Advertising. In individual matters involving wages, consulting a licensed attorney is advisable.
