This article presents data collected during fieldwork conducted in 2013-2015 around 20 domestic workers and 10 activists of the Union of domestic workers in Brazil, specifically in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Campinas. In particular, it examines the domestic workers’ labor conditions and their political struggles to achieve the same rights as other workers by demanding that state institutions recognize that “domestic work is work” and accept their claims. These efforts made it possible for domestic workers, who are poor, non-educated and mostly black women, to achieve significant results that improved their lives and selfesteem. To do so, activists established coalitions with other groups such as the movimento negro or black movement. Domestic workers’ struggles have always faced strong opposition. This article argues that these forms of opposition are linked not only to the conservative interests of many right-wing groups, but also to a more complex imbrication of structures of inequality based on the social and gender divisions of domestic labor and their connections to the racial and class hierarchy characteristic of Brazilian society. Domestic workers’ battles thus pave the way for a broader political project that aims to dismantle structures of inequality such as racism, sexism and class inequality and their intersections.