A domestic worker , housekeeper , housekeeper , male servant or abusive , is a person who works within the employer's household. Domestic workers perform a variety of household services for individuals or families, from providing care to children and dependent households, including household cleaning and care. Other responsibilities may include cooking, washing and ironing, food shopping and other household affairs. Such work is always necessary but before the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of labor-saving devices, it is physically much more difficult.
Some domestic servants live in their employer's household. In some cases, the contributions and skills of employees whose jobs include complex management tasks in large households are highly respected. However, for the most part, domestic work, though necessary, demanding and underappreciated. Although laws protecting domestic workers are in many countries, they are often not widely applicable. In many jurisdictions, domestic work is poorly regulated and domestic workers are victims of serious violations, including slavery.
Servant is the older English word for "domestic worker", though not all waiters work inside the house. Domestic services, or hiring people for wages in their employer's residence, are sometimes simply called "services" and are often part of a hierarchical system. In the UK, a highly developed domestic service system peaked towards the end of the Victorian era, perhaps reaching the most complicated and rigid state during the Edwardian period (the period known in the US as the Gilded Age and in France as Belle ÃÆ'â € poque), reflecting the mobility socially limited before World War I.
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Legal protection
The British Master and Servant Act of 1823 is the first of its kind and affects the creation of domestic service laws in other countries, although legislation tends to benefit employers. However, before the passing of such officials, and workers in general, have no legal protection. The only real advantages provided by domestic services are the provision of food, accommodation, and sometimes clothing, in addition to simple wages. Service is usually an apprentice system with room for progress through rank.
In the 301rd Session (March 2008), the Governing Body of the International Labor Organization (ILO) agreed to place an item on decent work for domestic workers on the agenda of the 99th Session of the International Labor Conference (2010) with a view to regulating labor standards. The conditions faced by domestic workers have varied greatly throughout history and in the contemporary world. In the twentieth-century movement for labor rights, women's rights and immigrant rights, the conditions faced by domestic workers and the specific problems for their work classes have surfaced. In 2011, the International Labor Organization adopted the Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers.
In July 2011, at the annual International Labor Conference, organized by the ILO, conference delegates adopted the Domestic Workers Convention by voting 396 to 16, with 63 abstentions. The Convention recognizes domestic workers as workers with equal rights with other workers. On 26 April 2012, Uruguay was the first country to ratify the convention.
Maps Domestic worker
Accommodation
Many domestic workers live in households. Although they often have their own accommodation, their accommodation is usually not as comfortable as being reserved for family members. In some cases, they sleep in a kitchen or small room, like a box room, sometimes located in a basement or attic. Domestic workers can stay in their own homes, although more often they are households "living in", meaning that they receive their rooms and boards as part of their pay. In some countries, due to the large gap between urban and rural incomes, and the lack of rural employment opportunities, even an ordinary middle-class urban family is able to employ a full-time maid. The majority of domestic workers in China, Mexico, India, and other densely populated developing countries, are people from rural areas employed by urban families.
Employers may ask their domestic workers to wear uniforms, livery or other "domestic workers" while in their employer's residence. The uniforms are usually modest, though aristocratic employers sometimes provide intricate decorative ornaments, especially for use on formal occasions. The female waitresses are dressed in long, plain, dark or black skirts with white belts and white blouses, and black boots, and the maids and butlers will wear something from a simple suit, or a white shirt, often with ties and pants within. In traditional depictions, domestic workers' clothing in particular is usually more formal and conservative than those they serve. For example, in early 20th century films, a butler may appear in a tail suit, while male family members and guests appear in casual wear or sports coats and trousers depending on the occasion. In subsequent depictions, employers and guests may wear casual trousers or even jeans, while a male domestic worker wears a jacket and tie or a white shirt with black trousers, a tie or bowtie, maybe even a vest, or a female domestic worker blouses and skirts (or trousers) or uniforms.
On 30 March 2009, Peru adopted a law prohibiting employers from requiring domestic workers to wear uniforms in public places. However, no explanation of what punishment will be given to employers who violate the law. Chile adopted a similar law in 2014, also prohibits employers from requiring domestic workers to wear uniforms in public places.
Current situation
ILO estimates by 2015 based on national and/or census surveys of 232 countries and regions, put the number of domestic workers around 67.1 million. But the ILO itself states that "experts say that due to the fact that such work is often hidden and unlisted, the total number of domestic workers can reach 100 million". The ILO also stated that 83% of domestic workers are women and many of them are migrant workers.
In Guatemala, it is estimated that eight per cent of all women work as domestic workers. They have almost no legal protection. Under Guatemala's labor law, domestic work "is not subject to time laws or regulations on the maximum number of hours worked in a day". By law, domestic workers are only entitled to ten hours of spare time in 24 hours, and one day off per week. But very often, these minimum labor laws are ignored, and so do basic civil liberties.
In Brazil, domestic workers must be employed under a registered contract and have many other worker rights, including minimum wages, paid holidays, and paid weekly holidays. However, it is not uncommon, for employers to hire employees illegally and fail to offer employment contracts. Because domestic staff are mostly from disadvantaged groups with fewer access to education, they are often vulnerable and have no information about their rights, especially in rural areas. However, domestic workers employed without appropriate contracts can successfully prosecute their employers and be compensated for misuse. It is common in Brazil for domestic staff, including childcare staff, to wear uniforms, while these requirements are no longer used in other countries.
In the United States, domestic workers are generally excluded from many legal protections granted to other working classes, including the provisions of the National Labor Relations Act. Traditionally, most domestic workers are women and tend to be immigrants. New York has required mandatory overtime and rest for domestic workers since 2010, although the New York-based California Bill, formerly known as AB 889, made it through the legislature before being vetoed in September 2012 by Governor Jerry Brown. American domestic workers who help homes, mostly women members of minority groups, earn low wages and often receive no pension or health benefits due to lack of basic labor protections. Reports from the National Household Domestic Workers Alliance and affiliated groups found that nearly a quarter of caregivers, caregivers and health workers at home make minimum wages in the states where they work, and nearly half - 48 percent - are paid less than necessary to support families adequately.
Child domestic worker
The use of children as domestic help continues to be common in the world, such as Latin America and parts of Asia. Such children are particularly vulnerable to exploitation: often they are not allowed to rest or are required to work long hours; many suffer from lack of access to education, which can contribute to social isolation and lack of future opportunities. UNICEF considers domestic work to be among the lowest status, and reports that the majority of child domestic workers are workers who live in and are under the full-time control of their employers. Some estimates indicate that among girls, domestic work is the most common form of employment. Child domestic work is common in countries such as Bangladesh and Pakistan. In Pakistan, from January 2010 to December 2013, 52 cases of torture against child domestic workers were reported to include 24 deaths. It is estimated that globally, at least 10 million children work in domestic work.
Children face a number of common risks in domestic work services. The International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor identifies that these risks include: long and exhausting workdays; use of toxic chemicals; carrying heavy loads; handling dangerous items such as knives, axes and hot pots; insufficient or inadequate food and accommodation, and humiliating or degrading treatment including physical and verbal abuse, and sexual harassment.
Domestic work and international migration
Many countries import domestic workers from abroad, usually from poor countries, through recruitment agencies and brokers because their own citizens are no longer obliged or inclined to do domestic work, including in most of the Middle East, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan. There are at least one million domestic workers in Saudi Arabia under the kafala system.
The main sources of domestic workers include Thailand, Indonesia, India, Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia. Taiwan also imports domestic workers from Vietnam and Mongolia. Organizations such as Kalayaan support the growth of this number of migrant domestic workers.
Migration of domestic workers can cause several different effects both in countries that send workers abroad and countries that accept domestic workers from abroad. A specific relationship between the labor-sending countries and the receiving countries is that the sending country can fill the gap in the labor shortage of the recipient country. This relationship can be potentially beneficial for both countries involved because the demand for labor is met and fulfilled by the worker's demand for employment. However, this relationship can prove to be quite complicated and not always useful. When unemployment in the recipient country increases migrant domestic workers is not only no longer necessary but their presence can harm domestic workers from the country.
As international migration begins to develop, the assumed migrant workers are usually regarded as men. What research is now beginning to show is that women dominate a large number of international patterns of migration by taking a large percentage of domestic workers who leave their home country to find employment as domestic workers in other countries.
Women migrating to take jobs as domestic workers are motivated by different reasons and migrate to different outcomes. While for many women, domestic work abroad is the only opportunity to find employment and provide income for their families, domestic workers are markets they are forced to enter because of blocked mobility in their homeland. In addition, migrant domestic workers often have to face the pressure of leaving behind family members in their home country while they work abroad. Upward mobility is very difficult for migrant domestic workers because their opportunities are often limited by their illegal status which places very clear limits on jobs available to them as well as their power to negotiate with employers
Debt advocacy to migrant domestic workers as groups
Some argue that the personal sacrifice of domestic workers has helped to support global economic and social development. Ariel Salleh's article "Ecological Debt: Tangible Debt," defines tangible debt as "debt held by Global North and Global South to 'reproductive workers' that produce and sustain the new labor force." According to the ILO, women constitute 80% of domestic workers. The high percentage of women in some domestic work argues the outcome of this sector association with motherhood, which leads to the assumption that domestic work is essentially women's work. To support, some argue that because domestic work takes place within the private sphere, which is seen as an inherent feminine. This argument says that the relationship built between domestic work and femininity carries the implications often referred to as 'domestic help', and that domestic workers are referred to as 'caregivers' or 'housemaids'. At least one writer argues that the use of language exacerbated by relations with domestic work with femininity contributes to the exclusion of domestic work from the majority of national labor laws.
Due to the lack of economic opportunities in the Global South, many women with families leave their home country and their own families to work in the Northern North. When they arrive in their destination country, their work often requires care for other families (including children and parents). Domestic workers often migrate to financially support close family, extended family, and even other members of their community. While surviving in hazardous and degrading conditions of work and life in the North, most of their wages are deposited into their home countries.
An additional argument has been made that since their work takes place in the private sphere, they often look invisible and entrepreneurs can withhold their travel documents, confine them to their employers' homes and hamper their access to legal remedies. Those who make this argument assert that the result of what they call the dynamics of power and the lack of labor rights, is that domestic workers are often forbidden to contact their families and often go months, years, and even decades without seeing the family those, whose life remittances they support.
Further, it has been argued that their ability to fill the labor shortage and accept a position within the reproductive workforce that their host nationals will refuse to support the development of a global capitalist system, together, and that they enable the beneficiaries of their remittances. in the South to ascend the social ladder. For some, this argument leads to the conclusion that the two circumstances in the North and the South are debt realized through the improvement of one's life at the expense of others' difficulties, and that the work of the workers is too often not seen as work, because their gender associations are labored reproduction work.
However, on 17 June 2011, after 70 years of lobbying by civil society groups, the ILO adopted a convention with the aim of protecting and empowering domestic workers. Many of the lobbies contributing to the ratification of the ILO C189 were conducted by a group of domestic workers, indicating that they were not only victims but agents of change. That only two recipient countries have ratified the convention has been debated by some to show the government's reluctance to acknowledge what these advocates see as public debt to the workers and to repay the perceived debt.
Such advocates assert that ratification and enforcement of the ILO C189 will mean that migrant domestic workers will enjoy the same labor rights as other 'more masculine' areas as well as citizens of their destination countries. The list of incomplete basic rights guaranteed by the ILO C189 under Article 7 includes: maximum working hours; fixed minimum wage; paid leave; provision of food and accommodation; and weekly rest periods. Guaranteeing these rights to migrant domestic workers is not a repayment of debt owed to them, but they are entitled to these rights because they are workers and human beings.
Social effects of housework
As women today dominate the domestic labor market around the world, they have learned to navigate domestic work systems both in their own countries and abroad to maximize the benefits of entering the domestic labor market.
Among the disadvantages of working as domestic workers is the fact that women working in this sector work in areas that are often regarded as private spaces. Female feminist critics working in the domestic realm argue that this female dominated market reinforces gender inequality by potentially creating employer-employer relationships between domestic workers and their employers and continues to place women in lower positions of power. Other critics point out that working in a privatized scope robs domestic workers of the benefits of more socialized work in the public sphere.
In addition, domestic workers face other losses. Their isolation increases because of their unfoundedness in the public sphere and the repetitive and intangible nature of their work decreases its value, making the workers themselves become more easily wasted. The level of alienation facing women also depends on the type of housework that involves them. Live-in nannies for example can sacrifice a lot of their own independence and sometimes become increasingly isolated when they live with families where they are not separated and away from themselves.
While working in a privatized world dominated by women can prove unfavorable to domestic workers, many women have learned how to help others to rise economically. Women find that the informal network of friends and family is one of the most successful and commonly used ways of finding and securing jobs.
Without the security of legal protection, many women who work without the necessary identities or citizenship papers are susceptible to harassment. Some must perform degrading tasks indicating the manifestation of the employer's power over the helplessness of the worker. Hiring domestic work from foreign countries can perpetuate the idea that housework or service is provided to other social or racial groups and to play into the stereotype that it works for lower groups of people.
Getting a job in the domestic labor market can prove to be difficult for immigrant women. Many subcontract their services to more established women workers, thus creating an important apprenticeship experience that can lead to better and independent opportunities in the future. Women who work as domestic workers also get job mobility. Once established, they have the option of accepting the work of many entrepreneurs who increase their income and their experience and most importantly their ability to negotiate prices with their employers.
Housework trends
The domestic work industry is currently dominated worldwide by women.
While the domestic work industry benefits women because it gives them a sector that has substantial access, it also proves unprofitable by strengthening gender inequality through the idea that domestic work is an industry that women should dominate. In the domestic work industry, the proportion of smaller occupations occupied by men is not the same occupation normally occupied by women. In the care industry boys make up only about 3-6% of all workers. In addition, in the care industry boys are more likely to fill non-domestic but administrative roles such as managerial roles in daycare centers.
While the domestic work industry was once believed to be an industry belonging to past societies and not included in the modern world, the trend shows that although the household industry elements have changed the industry itself shows no signs of fading, but only signs of transformation. There are several specific causes credited for continuing the household chores demand cycle. One of the reasons is that as more and more women are taking full-time jobs, ordinary households working with children place heavy burdens on parents. However, there is a reason that this burden will not result in requests for foreign aid if men and women provide the same level of effort in domestic work and raising children in their own homes.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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