Editorial
Establishing domestic workers' rights
We need to work for a legal framework
THE participants in a dialogue held in the city on Tuesday appealed to the government to bring domestic workers within the purview of the Labour Law, 2006. The points raised by them merit consideration, given the present wholly informal status of domestic workers who miss out on protection of laid down service rules.
This big service sector in terms of the huge contribution they make, both directly and indirectly to the well-being of households, and to the society and the economy should be formally recognised for what their intrinsic worth is. Traditionally, most of them are women and girls from poor families having no other means of subsistence. They work 12 to 14 hours a day for a mere pittance going through rigours of daily grind without a weekly holiday and can be sacked anytime without any severance benefit. In short, there are no rules and regulations that guide a domestic worker's service and in some cases they fall victim to inhuman behaviour and even violence.
So, there is every reason for the conscientious and well meaning to feel strongly the need for a change that will give domestic workers a legal status, although violence against them can be dealt with under the law. However, urban households are a very big source of employment for poor girls and women who literally comprise 80 percent of domestic workers in the city. Given this fact, the focus should not be on the stringency of law, barring, of course, in case of violence inflicted on them, rather it should be on putting a human face to the terms and conditions of their employment based on a balanced understanding of the realities on the ground. Changes should take place on a graduated scale rather than drastically.
The way to go about it would be to first survey the situation and create a database on the domestic workers covering all aspects of their occupation and existence. Then comes the question of monitoring by the social welfare department of the government, local communities and legal aid and civic rights groups to establish common denominators of behavioural patterns of employers and the employees to base a legal framework on.
Finally, awareness building among people is the most effective way to bring about a real change in the situation. The employers often show a poor understanding of very basic things about working conditions. Counselling and mediation mechanisms have to be developed to ensure that domestics can easily ventilate their grievances. It is not only an issue of guaranteeing their professional rights but also a matter of according dignity to labour which is the propellant of societal progress.
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