6 Jul 2011
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All about Domestic Workers and the ILO, New Treaty for Domestic Workers, Decent Work and Domestic Workers and more on Mywage Zambia
By Meluse Kapatamoyo
On June 16, 2011 the International Labour Organisation (ILO) adopted a new treaty that would extend key labour protections to domestic workers worldwide.
Trade unions, employers’ organisations and governments that make up the ILO overwhelmingly voted to adopt the ILO Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers, which establishes the first global standards for the estimated 50 to 100 million domestic workers worldwide, the vast majority of whom are women and girls.
Of 475 votes by governments, workers, and employers, 396 delegates voted for the convention, 16 voted against, and 63 abstained.
Instrumental in advocating for strong protections were South Africa, Australia, Brazil and the United States.
However, Swaziland was the only country that did not vote in favor of the convention, while the United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia, Sudan, El Salvador, Thailand, the Czech Republic and Panama abstained from the vote.
Three years to develop Domestic Workers Convention
ILO members spent three years developing the convention to address the routine exclusion of domestic workers from labour protections guaranteed to other workers, such as weekly days off, limits to hours of work, and a minimum wage.
The Human Rights Watch noted that for many years, millions of domestic workers have been without guarantees of their basic rights and faced a wide range of grave abuses and labour exploitation, including excessive working hours without rest, non-payment of wages, forced confinement, physical and sexual abuse, forced labour, and trafficking.
“Discrimination against women and poor legal protections have allowed abuses against domestic workers to flourish in every corner of the world,” said Nisha Varia, senior women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This new convention is a long overdue recognition of housekeepers, nannies, and caregivers as workers who deserve respect and equal treatment under the law.”
Protecting Domestic Workers
Among requirements, the convention compels governments to provide domestic workers with labour protections, equivalent to those of other workers, including for working hours, minimum wage coverage, overtime compensation, daily and weekly rest periods, social security, and maternity protection. The new standards also oblige governments to protect domestic workers from violence from violence and abuse, and to ensure effective monitoring and enforcement.
Negotiations over the past two years have included contentious debates over such subjects as working hours for live-in domestic workers, in-kind payments such as housing, and labour inspections in private homes.
Jo Becker, Children’s rights advocate at Human Rights Watch said, “Just because domestic work takes place in private homes is no excuse for governments to abandon their responsibility to ensure these workers’ labour rights. All governments should bring their national laws in line with this landmark treaty and ratify it as soon as possible.”
Domestic Workers in Zambia
Early this year and for the first time in Zambia’s history, government introduced a minimum wages of K250, 000 for domestic workers.
Other features in the instrument (The Minimum Wages and Conditions of Employment Act, Cap 276) include: the minimum wage hours of work, separation package and transport allowance.
The act defines a domestic worker as a person: who takes care of a child, an aged person, a sick person, a frail person or a person with a disability within a household. Gardeners and those paid to do household chores are also classified as domestic workers.
Read more
Read more about Domestic Work in Zambia. And find about Minimum Wages in Zambia as well.