Introduction and Key Recommendations for an ILO Convention on Domestic Work
Submitted by R.E.S.P.E.C.T Network
Campaigning for the Rights of Migrant Domestic Workers in Europe and Internationally
Amsterdam, May 2009
Summary on proposed Key recommendations
In the European context therefore, RESPECT highlights the following key
considerations in preparing the proposed ILO Instruments:
1) The recognition of Domestic work: The recognition of domestic work as
proper work and the inclusion of all domestic workers (women and men,
young or old, national citizen or migrant, live-in or live-out) as an integral part
of the workforce with an immigration status that recognises migrant domestic
workers.
2) Comprehensive legal protections: Labour legislation that applies to all other
workers to be applied to the domestic workers and to ensure equal protection
under the law – related to written contracts, agreed wages, hours of work and
rest, health insurance and other social benefits, freedom of mobility and to
form self-organisations and join trade unions, freedom to change employers, as
well as provisions covering the unique circumstance of live-in domestic
workers regarding living conditions and privacy.
3) Effective mechanisms of enforcement of labour legislation: This should
include instruments protection against unjust termination; against the risks of
homelessness of live-in domestic workers; paid holidays and sick leave days.
4) Effective protection for migrant domestic workers: Migrant domestic workers
should have a work permit independent of their employer to ensure avoidance
of abuse and violation of rights regularly experienced in ‘tied’ employment.
Domestic work is not a category for migration in most European countries.
Therefore while migrant workers are on the one hand delivering an enormous
contribution – economically and socially - to needed and important work in
4
European societies, on the other hand they are vulnerable to exploitation (such
as long hours of work, low payment and to personal abuse by members of the
families) as a consequence of the separation of juridical residence and work
permit.
5) Effective protection for Domestic Workers in the employment of the
Diplomatic corps: Domestic workers in the employment of the Diplomatic
corps should be protected by existing and new labour legislation and be able to
access legal redress in the case of unjust or abusive treatment. Specific
mechanisms should be put in place ensuring a judicial process in relation to
diplomats who are responsible for abusing their domestic workers.
6) Effective protection for ‘au pairs’: This is a particularly vulnerable sector of
people who work in the private home. It has been a practice to accept that au
pairs undertake “light household work” as exchange for accommodation while
undertaking a cultural exchange. However there is increasing evidence that
this framework is exploited to access a flexible and cheap source of domestic
workers. The ‘au pair’ framework should therefore be strongly regulated.
7) Provisions to protect domestic workers against physical, sexual and
psychological violence: These provisions include access to immediate and
confidential redress as well as support for and access to legal redress.
|
1. Who are Migrant Domestic Workers in Europe?
Increasingly in Europe, the focus is on the provision of care for both children - where both
parents work outside the home - and of older people - within the context of Europe’s ageing
population. Since the 80s and 90s and continuing in this first decade of the new century,
there is an increased demand for affordable care services in the private home. But who is to
do this work, particularly given the broader framework of concern about more general
labour shortages as a result of demographic trends?
Migration has been proposed as part of a solution to this employment gap. However the
work of domestic and care services in the private home still remain categorised mainly as
“unskilled” and is not recognised in many countries as a category for immigration. Thus
migrant workers who come to work in the private home in the EU are only allowed to enter
in some countries on temporary visas or come as tourists. In this context, the worker is faced
with an unsustainable status as a worker and frequently becomes undocumented.
Work in the private home is highly unregulated. Globally as well as here in Europe it is
notoriously open to abuse and to violation of basic human rights as has been well
documented. In the context where the workers are migrants and undocumented, their
working and living conditions are highly vulnerable and subject to systematic violation of
their labour and human rights.
2. Who are Migrant Domestic Workers in Europe?
Migrant domestic workers (MDWs) work in private households in roles which include
childcare, eldercare, cleaning and cooking. Migrant workers tend to concentrate in live-in
work, which is particularly unpopular with EU nationals, and where employers may prefer
to employ foreign workers on lower wages. However, migrants also live out, making a
living by working for several employers. They come from many different countries of origin
(from Asia, Africa and Latin America and more recently from Eastern Europe and CIS
countries. Different nationalities may cluster in certain EU states – in Spain for example,
Peruvian or Dominican Republic domestic workers are more common than in the UK.
Domestic workers are predominantly female, but not exclusively, and indeed male domestic
workers, who may be preferred in certain contexts where heavy lifting is required for
example, are particularly invisible. MDWs themselves, may range from the young to those
more senior who have not yet retired but who have worked most of their lives as domestic
workers in Europe.
3. What is the immigration status of Migrant Domestic Workers?
Despite the growing demand for their labour, a coherent EU strategy has not been
developed around immigration and domestic work/childcare/ eldercare. This means that
migrant domestic workers have a wide range of immigration statuses. This depends on their
nationality and on the EU state in which they are residing and working. For non-EU
migrants there are three “types” of immigration status that MDWs may have:
• they may be working on a visa that requires them to work in private households as is
the case in Spain, and Italy as well as ‘au pair’ visa holders in the Netherlands. Or they
may have access to the labour market for example with a student visa in the UK which
allows people to work 20 hours a week.
• they may be residing legally but working in breach of conditions attached to their visa
(e.g. a tourist visa holder who is not allowed to work, or a student visa holder who is
working more than 20 hours a week)
• they may be residing as undocumented migrants (e.g. overstayers).
4. What are the Living and Working conditions of Migrant Domestic Workers?
The work of Migrant Domestic Workers (MDWs) takes place in the private household, a
place, which is often exempt from labour laws and where typically trades unions do not
have access. MDWs are often exploited by the families they work for, and many face
psychological, physical, sexual, and racist harassment from their employers and their
employers’ children.
Several research studies have demonstrated that working conditions in the private
household lead to violations of labour and fundamental human rights both in situations
where the immigration status and labour conditions have recently changed (as in the UK in
and in Greece in 1997) as well as in countries which do not recognise domestic work as
proper work or a category for immigration as in The Netherlands and in Germany