Kamala Harris and Pramila Jayapal have proposed a “Domestic Workers Bill of Rights Act” that, among other things, would create a Domestic Worker Wage and Standards Board. This board would provide an agency in the government for “domestic workers” such as childcare workers, eldercare workers, nurses, home health aides, nannies, butlers, chauffeurs, and so on — accounting for about 2.5 million workers, according to their estimates.

Harris and Jayapal’s bill is the result of years of organizing on the part of domestic workers, who have successfully made their issues a national talking point. The board addresses an inherent challenge to improving domestic workers’ conditions: their isolation in individual homes and the barriers that raises to bargaining.

What it doesn’t address is whether domestic workers’ employment should be so tied to individual families in the first place. Much of this work, such as childcare and eldercare, rightly belongs in the public sector. To eliminate the worst abuses of the system, it’s time we talk about changing its basic structure. That means socializing this type of care, bringing these workers into the public sector, and drastically improving their ability to organize.