Issue link: http://maconmagazine.uberflip.com/i/1525586
62 maconmagazine.com | August/September 2024 Emma Hughes on campus in the CGTC Welding Lab. declared, saying that each time she's seen the mural, it's taken her breath away. "It's something that I know that looks like me. I see me and my grand babies, and it just moved me. The first day I saw it, I couldn't do nothing but praise God. God is good because that represents not just me but all the caregivers." Brawley added, "It's some of us out here that's working and can't hardly make it." S U P P O R T I N G T H O S E W H O S U P P O R T O T H E R S The NWDA outlines why care work is important on its website: "Care work is, and has always been, essential because it makes all other work possible." They define care work as work in the service of others, such as childcare, elder care, and care for people with disabilities. Domestic workers are defined as those who are specifically contracted to work in the home. The NWDA, along with many other labor organizations, recognize both paid and unpaid work in value, with unpaid work often performed by family members. This sector is often called "pink-collar work" because the work is predominantly performed by women, and in the United States, particularly women of color and immigrant women. Here are some fast facts about what guides this vital work. The NWDA says that there are 2.5 million domestic workers in the United States, and 91.5% of them are women. In a 2018 report, the International Labour Organization (ILO) noted that women perform 76.2 percent of the total amount of unpaid care work worldwide, which is 3.2 times the amount of unpaid work that men perform. When you add this amount of unpaid work up into time with paid work, women are working a longer day than men, and the ILO believes that unpaid care work interferes with women's paid work. The Institute for Women's Policy Research notes F AY E C O O P E R a member of the Georgia chapter of the NWDA, has been a family caregiver for 38 years, since she first began caring for her grandmother so her mother could go to work. Her top priority is more pay and better conditions for care workers.