Decent Work

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Decent Work

• For Domestic Workers
• Law and Practice
• Report IV (1)

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Structure of the presentation

• Domestic work main features
• Domestic work in national law and practice a
  focus on working conditions and social protection
• Domestic workers, freedom of association and
  collective bargaining
• ILOs work on domestic workers
• Possible draft international labour standard(s)

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Why is domestic work important?

• An ILOs old concern
• Domestic work allows the household and the
  economy outside the household to function
• Oldest and most important occupation for many
  women around the world
• Invisible, undervalued and poorly regulated
• Work with serious decent work deficits

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How many domestic workers?

• Lack of accurate and comparable data
• Varying definitions of domestic work in national
  statistics
• Under-reporting because of high incidence of
  undeclared domestic work
• Domestic work absorbs a significant proportion of
  total employment (see next slide)
• DW comprise also men, but women are the large
  majority (see next slide)
• In the last 30 years migrant domestic work on the
  rise

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What is Domestic Work? Work like any other, work
like no other

• Work which takes place in the employers
  household
• Work which does not generate profits for the
  employer
• Often, the workplace and the home overlap
• Work which is not perceived as such
• De jure and de facto partially or totally
  excluded from the scope of labour law protection
  regulated by strong non-state norms

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Who is the employer?

• Employer may
• be a natural person, including any representative
  of this person (e.g. Barbados)
• include the entire family
  (e.g. Brazil and Bulgaria)
• include placement agencies (e.g. Barbados)
• a third party like a recognized health care
  agency, or the State acting as an intermediary
  (e.g. USA)

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Contract of employment

• Contracts facilitate the formalization of the
  employment relationship
• Contracts may be verbal (e.g. Bolivia, Costa
  Rica, Guatemala, Paraguay, Viet Nam) or in
  writing (e.g. Brazil, Nicaragua, Spain)
• Some countries are starting to provide
  non-binding model contracts (e.g. Peru, Canton of
  Geneva)
• When domestic workers cross international borders
  to work
• Several countries require a written contract
  (e.g. Tanzania, Indonesia, Canada, Hong Kong,
  Singapore)
• Others may require translation of the contract in
  the language of the domestic worker (e.g.
  Philippines and Qatar Memorandum of Agreement)

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Working conditions Remuneration

• Domestic work is undervalued
• Limited bargaining power of domestic worker
• Wages often used as a form of control
• Under payment or late payment of wages is common
• Lodging and board typically regarded as a form of
  payment, but some countries forbid this practice
  (see next slide)
• Salary deductions often made for damage caused by
  domestic workers in the course of their work
• DW often excluded from minimum wage coverage (see
  next slide), but interesting developments in
  Uruguay

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Working conditions working time

• Significant differences between generally
  applicable working time standards and those that
  concern domestic workers (see next slide)
• About 50 of countries do not impose a mandatory
  limit on normal hours of work for domestic
  workers
• 50 of countries permit domestic worker to work
  longer hours than other workers over 45 impose
  the same limit for all workers
• 58 of countries provide between 1 and 2 days of
  rest time per week 40 do not specify any rest
  time period.
• 83 countries do not impose any specific limit on
  night work most of the remainder set the limit
  at eight hours

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Social protection and domestic workers

• Significant variation in the extension of social
  benefits to DW (see next slide)
• DW are often excluded from OSH legislation, their
  work being considered not risky
• As long as the household is not recognized as a
  workplace, occupational health and safety for
  domestic workers will be difficult to achieve
• DW working for multiple employers face
  difficulties in demonstrating eligibility to
  social benefits (e.g. Netherlands)
• The majority of countries provide maternity leave
  de jure (see next slide), but enforcement is
  problematic

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Cheque service from Informal to Formal

• Simplified payment structure to
• A) facilitate the calculation of mandatory
  employment deductions
• B) assist in the payment for services rendered by
  employees, on an intermittent basis, to several
  employers
• Adopted by France (1993), Quebec, Canada (1998),
  Canton of Geneva (2004)

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Domestic Workers Rights to Organize and
Collectively Bargain

• Convention No. 87 applies also to DW
• Difficulties to exercise these rights
• Isolation in individual households
• Poor working conditions and low pay
• Limited resources of their organizations
• Low trade union membership
• Low organization of employers associations
• Non-recognition of their right to collectively
  bargain.
• Non-recognition of their organization as
  legitimate representing organizations
• Brazil Decision of 15th Labour Tribunal for
  Campinas (2004)

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Domestic workers organize

• Domestic Workers Organizations
• Brazil First organization formed in 1936 in Sao
  Paulo. National Federation of Domestic Workers
  (FENATRAD), founded in 1997, 35 unions
  affiliated.
• Latin America and Caribbean Confederation of
  Household Workers (CONLACTRAHO) member
  organizations from 13 countries. Promotes DW
  visibility and rights and cooperation with
  official trade unions
• All India Domestic Workers Union lobbies for
  minimum wages, payment of wages, weekly rest and
  annual leave periods, as well the establishment
  of a servant registry
• Asian Domestic Workers Union since 1988 operates
  in Hong Kong, SAR. Members come from
  Philippines, Thailand, India, Indonesia,
  Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka
• The United Women of Maryland (USA) are forming
  workplace cooperatives to push for improved
  conditions for DW

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Trade unions reaching out to DW

• Trade Unions
• In Canada, the United Steelworkers (USW) and a
  migrant workers association, Migrante-Ontario,
  established an independent workers association
  with a section representing domestic workers in
  Ontario (2008)
• A two-year Partnership Agreement on Migrant
  Labour between the Malaysian Trade Union Congress
  (MTUC) and the Indonesian Trade Union Congress
  (ITUC) was signed on 17 September 2006.
• Project Protection for Domestic Workers!,
  International support network (IUF, PSI, UNI)
• The International Trade Union Confederation
  (ITUC), Rerum Novarum Workers Confederation of
  Costa Rica and the Sandinista Workers
  Confederation of Nicaragua reach a cooperation
  agreement for establishing a trade union support
  centre for migrants in 2006.
• UNITE in the UK and FNV Bondgenoten in the
  Netherlands recognize DW as members in alliance
  with DW organizations
• In Sri Lanka, the National Workers Congress (NWC)
  has signed a cooperation agreement with unions in
  receiving countries, including the Jordanian
  General Federation of Trade Unions

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ILOs work on domestic workers

• Technical cooperation (TC)
• Research
• International Labour Standards
• (ILS)

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Focus of TC and research work

• Enhancing the visibility of domestic workers
• Through research and by building capacity of
  researchers in the different regions
• Brazil The Decent Work Agenda of Bahia and the
  Citizenship Program for Domestic Workers (Federal
  programme)
• Addressing legal flaws and overcoming the
  enfercement gap
• Costa Rica Domestic Workers Association
  (ASTRODOMES) dissemination of information on
  labour and social security rights
• Lebanon recognition that migrant workers are
  entitled to labour rights and steps to develop a
  regulation on employment agencies.
• Promoting a rights based-approach
• Project on the Greater Mekong sub-region legal
  assistance and rights education have been
  provided to domestic workers in Thailand and the
  Philippines

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Coverage of domestic workers under existing ILS

• Unless explicitly excluded, domestic workers are
  considered to be covered by existing ILS
• A number of ILO conventions allow for their
  exclusion (see next slide)
• DW requires specific regulation which
  acknowledges the special characteristics of the
  work and the context in which it takes place

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Possible draft International Labour Standards on
DW

• ILC 2010 will decide the number and type of draft
  instrument (s)
• Possible scenarios
• a Convention, or
• a Recommendation, or
• a Convention and a Recommendation, or
• a Convention with binding and non-binding parts

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Possible elements to be included in a
Recommendation

• The recommendation offers standards that would
  enhance the protections found in the Convention
• Identification of the special conditions in which
  DW is carried out
• Circumscription of the practice of payment in
  kind
• Guidance on identifying, limiting and
  appropriately calculating working time
• Guidance on food and accommodation for live-in
  domestic workers
• Address vulnerabilities of domestic workers,
  including age and migration status, and identify
  standards specific to them

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Possible convention with binding and non-binding
parts

• Beyond formal inclusion of DW, towards specific
  regulations
• Would reaffirm the coverage of domestic workers
  under existing ILS
• Would provide clear targets that take into
  account the specificity of the domestic work
  relationship
• Would offer options as to how the decent work
  objectives might be achieved
• Would promote a multi-level approach to
  governance
• Clarity and simplicity

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Steps towards the preparation and adoption of ILO
draft international labour instrument(s) on
domestic workers

• March 2009 The Office sends a law and practice
  report along with a questionnaire to ILO Member
  States. Governments are requested to consult with
  the most representative workers organizations
  and employers' associations
• August 2009 Deadline for submission of replies
  to the Office.
• January 2010 The Office sends to ILO Member
  States a second report examining the replies
  received to the questionnaire in 2009
• June 2010 First discussion at the International
  Labour Conference (ILC) of the ILO. A decision is
  taken on the form of the draft ILO instrument(s)-
  whether a Convention or a Recommendation or both
  or a Convention with binding and non-binding
  parts.
• August 2010 The Office sends a third report
  containing (a) draft instrument(s) to Member
  States
• End November 2010 Deadline for submission to the
  Office of comments on the third report by Member
  States
• March 2011 The Office sends two reports to
  member States one examining the replies received
  on the third report, and the other containing
  the text of the draft instrument(s) revised in
  the light of comments received
• June 2011 Second discussion at the ILC. A
  Convention or any other agreed instrument will
  be discussed and adopted or rejected by the ILC

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• THANK YOU!