Brazil has 9.1 million domestic workers. Ninety five percent of them are women, 60 percent are black. Many earn less than five dollars a day. Domestic workers began mobilizing 90 years ago, but it was not until the return to democracy in 1985 when trades unions were allowed again, that domestic workers turned their association into a union. As a result of collective action, legislation was passed to extend labour benefits such as paid vacations, maternity leave and retirement benefits to domestic workers, with significant improvements in their work conditions. This case study describes how women’s involvement in social movements has become a vector for significant change in the process of women’s empowerment in Brazil and the factors that supported and inhibited this process.