Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), and Dulce Matuz, president of the Arizona DREAM Act Coalition, have been named to the 2012 Time 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

In a profile at Time.Com, Gloria Steinem writes about Poo:

Once in a while, there comes along a gifted organizer—think of the radical empathy of Jane Addams or the populist tactics of César Chávez—who knows how to create social change from the bottom up.

NDWA is a group of 35 local organizations of nannies, housekeepers and caregivers in 19 cities in 11 states. In a video feature, Poo says the nation’s 2.5 million domestic workers who are excluded from almost every labor law “are the most visible invisible workforce.”

Last May, the AFL-CIO and the Domestic Workers Alliance entered into a partnership and also worked together at the 2011 International Labor Organization’s (ILO) annual conference to pass a Decent Work for Domestic Workers Convention.

The partnership continues in the fight to pass a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in California patterned after the one the Domestic Workers Alliance won in New York State.  At a Sacramento rally for the bill earlier this year, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said:

Domestic workers' rights are civil rights. Domestic workers' rights are human rights. Together, we can make a future when every single worker has the fundamental right to be treated with respect, to put in a hard day's work and be rewarded fairly for it.    

Click here to view Time's 100 video of Poo.

Dulce Matuz represents the finest of her generation, putting herself through college partly via scholarships and graduating with an electrical-engineering degree. An undocumented Latina confronted with legal barriers to pursuing her engineering dream, she chose to fight for the right to contribute to the country she has called home since she was young.

“The U.S. immigration debate brings out the worst in some and the best in others,” writes Eva Longoria, in a profile of Matuz:

The Arizona DREAM Act Coalition promotes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who, like her, were brought to the U.S. before they were 16, attend college or serve in the military and are of good moral character.