The Upper East Side is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country, where on an average night the rich are able to quietly luxuriate without any disturbance from the “other New York.” Wednesday was not an average night.
A combative band of domestic workers, backed up by an actual band of musicians from the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, noisily arrived at the doorstep of millionaire socialite Elyse Slaine at 925 Park Avenue for a surprise visit. They were led by Filipina domestic worker Marichu De Sesto, who says she cooked and cleaned for Slaine for 15 years, working long and unpaid overtime hours, only to be abruptly kicked to the curb in May when she requested a day off for a medical appointment.
Returning to that curb with 50 activists and fellow workers at her back, De Sesto was denied entry to the building on Oct. 29. She delivered a demand letter for her back wages, however, signed by Damayan Migrant Workers Association, Justice First and a host of other workers’ organizations.
De Sesto says that since May she has attempted numerous times to retrieve her unpaid wages from her final month of employment, but Slaine ignored the requests. Slaine may have expected that De Sesto was too isolated or weak to do anything more. She was wrong, as De Sesto soon found Damayan, an organization with years of experience in the fight against the exploitation of Filipino immigrants and domestic workers.
Slaine refused to come downstairs and see the woman who cared for her, her daughter, her dog, her duplex apartment and her Hamptons home for the last 15 years. Instead, her boyfriend came down and tried in vain to convince the police officers, guarding the front of the building, to disperse the crowd. The protesters, fully within their rights, stayed for nearly two hours, chanting, giving speeches, flyering to Slaine’s neighbors, and playing their instruments.
They left with a clear message, one that Slaine undoubtedly heard from her window: “We’ll be back! We’ll be back!”
Damayan and Justice First are organizing daily flyering outside the apartment building until Slaine comes to a just and comprehensive settlement for years of stealing De Sesto’s wages.
