The 99th Session of the International Labour Conference (ILC), to be held in Geneva (June 2010), will engage in a `standard-setting` exercise for domestic work when the tripartite `standard-setting committee` discusses the `yellow report`, which contains a summary of the written replies to a law and practice report (`white report`) received from member states, and a set of proposed conclusions that the ILO Office has prepared on the basis of those replies. The ILO Governing Body (at its 301st Session in March 2008) had placed the item on decent work for domestic workers on the agenda of the 99th Session (2010) of the International Labour Conference. The task of the standard-setting committee is to consider and reach an agreement on proposed conclusions, which it recommends to the Conference for adoption as an international Labour Convention and/or Recommendation. However, the standard-setting exercise of decent work for domestic workers will not be completed this year. Based on the discussions of the `yellow report`, the ILO Office prepares a `brown report` on which further comments and suggestions will be invited from member states. Subsequently, the ILO Office will prepare the `blue report`, containing the draft text of the proposed standard, for the Conference`s consideration during its second discussion in 2011. Millions of domestic workers all over the world will have to wait one more year to see whether the global body of governments, employers and employees will finally agree on standards for their work.

The double discussion mandated for setting standards for domestic work is driven more by the fluidity of the issue and the indecisiveness on the part of the member states rather than the procedural hurdles of the ILO. For instance, the Government of India, in its reply to the ILO, has advocated a non-binding recommendation as opposed to a binding Convention. Not just India, 31 out of 90 governments and 7 out of 15 employers, who responded to the ILO questionnaire, opted for a Recommendation only. Dismissively, the Government of India has noted in its reply that “there is need to develop some guidelines on the working conditions of domestic workers.” It has stated that a Recommendation will “help achieve flexibility in implementation and provide guidance for the regulation of domestic work.” Even for a Recommendation, the Government of India did not support the idea of regulation of work in the text and has said, “This should be introduced progressively, taking into account the complexities of the question (emphasis added).” On the question of whether the preamble of the instrument or instruments should recall that international labour Conventions and Recommendations apply to all workers, including domestic workers, unless otherwise provided, the Government of India has said categorically, “This is not necessary.” The Government of India has deliberately refrained from replying to a question on the right of the domestic workers to collective bargaining. The Government of India`s reluctance to be forthcoming in protecting domestic workers ostensibly stems from an apprehension that there is no existing law in India for domestic workers, and that the regulation of domestic work through the existing labour administrative instruments is not possible because private households are not included in the definition of `industry` as per labour laws. Whereas the former is something that the Government of India can correct at any point in time, the latter is not exclusive to India; and international efforts to set standards would obviously begin with recognition of the unique characteristics of domestic work and the challenges of implementation, rather than cite them as reasons not to regulate.

Over the years, and in particular during the recent standard-setting efforts, a rich body of literature has come up on the unique characteristics of domestic work as a phenomenon as it has evolved historically and as it exists in its contemporary forms. Most significant of the insights of this literature is the articulation of domestic work as nothing other than the commodification of household tasks performed by women, generation after generation. Mainstream economics does not consider women`s engagements at home as `productive work` and, therefore, it is not recognised as work in official economic and social policy documents. Challenging this patriarchal conception of work, women`s movements and feminist literature have emphasised the social, economic and political value of `reproductive tasks` undertaken by women. Simultaneously, women`s movements have raised issues of the rights of women to be employed in those vocations considered productive and the exclusive domain of men, and the need for men to share household tasks relegated as women`s exclusive domain. Though not much has happened in terms of men sharing responsibilities with women, women have entered areas of work hitherto undertaken only by men, or emerging areas of work, or as instances of emancipation of women from the drudgery of the kitchen. This `increasing participation of women in the labour market`, as it is usually put, and the reluctance of men to share household work results in a `double burden` of work for women responsible both for their work in the office or factory and their household work which, in turn, required that household responsibilities be taken over by someone else. Mainly, two aspects of the `reproductive work` of women in households have been commodified and have become possible as paid work, namely, care work addressing the physical and emotional needs of family members including husbands, children, sick and the elderly, etc. and `dirty` work maintenance of the household, including cooking, washing, cleaning, etc.

The coincidence of the commodification of household tasks and their displacement to another set of people is the basis of the second unique characteristic of domestic workthis `other set of people` are also women. Domestic work is usually given as an example of the feminisation of work. In many countries, domestic work constitutes more than 15 per cent of women`s employment and women constitute more than 90 per cent of domestic workers. However, what we see is not feminisation of work that was previously done by males, but the continuation of work done by women by other women, as poorly remunerated and protected wage work, within a framework of class, caste, religious, regional and ethnic divides, and with serious consequences for the capacity of these `other women` to care for their own families or selves. Women who opt for domestic work in the households of the middle class and the rich in India are mostly women from impoverished peasant families or women, who have lost access to natural resource-based livelihood systems. As a result of this kind of work, necessary care functions are cruelly denied to the family members of those, who provide those same services as paid service to others. In Delhi, a domestic worker revealed that she ties her two children to a cot while she is working in the homes of others because there is no one to watch over them and nowhere to take them, and no other way to ensure that they remain safe when alone at home. The resolution of a work-life imbalance for some leads to serious work-life deficits for others, and an overall reinforcement of a gendered division of labour in society.

Third, the commodification of unproductive and private household tasks has not translated into its recognition as `work` and the possibility of its `valuation`. Domestic workers remain under-enumerated or non-enumerated in national statistics. For instance, the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) 2004–05 estimate of 4.75 million domestic workers in India is the number of workers employed in private households, which includes domestic workers, but does not exclude other categories of persons working in households. The `invisibility` of domestic workers is not only because they work in private households but also because they are engaged in performing traditionally invisible, non-enumerated and unpaid tasks. In most states of India, domestic work is not included in the schedule of the Minimum Wages Act 1948, and even when included, domestic workers are not paid notified minimum wages. Domestic work is generally the option of those who do not have any other skill to enter labour market and are classified unskilled. In Delhi, domestic workers rarely get Rs 5,272, the notified (w.e.f 01 February 2010) monthly minimum wage for unskilled workers for eight hours of work or Rs 203 per day. Live-out domestic workers are paid according to tasks performed, but their payment never adds up to a daily wage of Rs 203. Non-recognition further results in the de jure and de facto partial or total exclusion from the protection of other labour laws, pertaining to working conditions, occupational safety and health, social security, right to bargain collectively, etc. With the normative and legal exclusion of the household as a place of work, enforcement too becomes impossible to achieve.

A fourth unique feature of domestic work is that domestic workers are overwhelmingly migrants, either migrating from low-income to high-income countries or within countries from impoverished regions to affluent regions. In Europe, the Gulf countries and the Middle East, the majority of domestic labourers today are migrant women from Asia. Similarly, high-income Asian countries receive a large number of women domestic workers from low-income Asian countries. The intensified female migration for domestic work in the context of the current phase of globalisation and uneven development has been variously designated as a `global care chain`, `the new international reproductive labour` and a `new domestic world order`. Such terminologies denote informal and institutionalised mechanisms and processes that facilitate movement of women for care work along power axes defined by gender, economic growth, race, ethnicity, colour and religion. The flow of migrants are regulated and controlled by private agents and contractors, as well as public policies, without the least consideration for basic rights of those who migrate. Often, a combination of a demand for domestic work and restrictions on mobility result in the trafficking of potential domestic workers, especially women and children. Many remain undocumented and are subject to the attendant risks of insecurity and criminalisation. Domestic work is among the most racialised and segregated occupations. Racialisation happens when one group of workers are preferred or discriminated against, based on race, colour and ethnicity. Domestic workers from the low-income countries, who work in the high-income countries of Europe and the Gulf, are generally temporary migrant workers who do not enjoy the right to become permanent residents in their host country, to take up any other job in the labour market or to enjoy any social security benefits. A replica of this international `global care chain` is seen within India, where women in large numbers migrate to urban households to perform domestic work mediated through well-entrenched but uncouth agents, and controlled and regulated by the unwelcome urban policies of the state. They enjoy abysmal housing and civic amenities, and are shunted from place to place, denied education for their children, often denied citizenship rights due to non-availability of identity proof and criminalised, often based on prejudices. Domestic work carried out in India in the private spaces of homes is an area where caste discrimination gets reinforced, though the issue has not come for public debate so far. Domestic tasks are not decided based on skill levels, but based on the caste of the worker. Preferences or rejection based on ethnicity, religion, colour and caste is a manifestation of prevailing racialisation of domestic work in India.

A fifth unique feature of domestic work is the relationship of the worker to the employer and the conditions in which they work, which qualifies domestic work as it currently is performed to be classified among the contemporary forms of slavery by the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery. Domestic work, in the form that exists today, has recently been recognised as a form of slavery by the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Council in its adoption of a recommendation on Domestic Slavery: Servitude, Au pairs and “Mail Order Brides” (1663/2004). In India, wives of bonded labourers were compelled to perform domestic work in the households of their masters although, in most cases, the kitchen was not accessible to them owing to caste considerations. Whereas such practices are not uncommon today in some parts of rural India, we have seen how it gets reinvented in the urban set-up.

In commodified domestic work, it is not the labour power of women that the employers are purchasing but the personhood of women the socially reproductive characteristics of women. Especially for live-in domestic workers, the surrender of their personhood to their masters makes them extremely vulnerable to severe physical and emotional exploitation, the slavery-like practices of the contemporary era. There is no limit to working hours for domestic workers, including night work. Wages are often an important tool of control of domestic workers. Payments in kind, inclusion of food and lodging as in-kind remuneration, non-payment or late payment of wages, extracting unpaid labour, etc., are widely used to control domestic workers. Domestic workers usually share their employers` houses as their place of residence, which is also their place of work, restricting mobility and any sense of privacy. Verbal abuse, physical abuse and torture leading to death are not uncommon. Domestic workers also face sexual harassment and abuse.

Such unique features of domestic work have acted as constraints in organising domestic workers, making this sector among the least organised. The lack of legal status, fear of loss of employment, fear of deportation if migrants, the inviolable privacy of households, the scattered nature of employment, long working hours and having more than one employer are factors that make domestic workers often hesitant to speak up publicly and demonstrate. However, the spread of commodified domestic work and the intensity of exploitation have also offered opportunities for the development of innovative strategies to organise the workers, by providing them opportunities to interact, exchange views and discuss political issues. The ILO`s efforts to set standards for domestic work is a giant step towards the recognition of domestic work as work and domestic workers as workers by the international community. It will make national governments accountable and encourage domestic workers, trade unions and civil society organisations to put pressure on their respective governments to recognise and articulate the entitlements of domestic workers. Whether the universally accepted standards for domestic workers will eventually do away with the gendered division of household work is a larger issue.

With the ILO`s efforts as backdrop, Labour File brings together a wide range of views on domestic work in India. This issue of Labour File provides analytical articles, stories from the field, narratives and profiles of domestic workers. Jayati Ghosh, Irudaya Rajan, Coen Compier, Neetha N, Reiko Tsushima, Shrayana Bhattacharjee are among those who debate the issue of standards for domestic work and locate it in the Indian context. Whereas the interview with Ms Sachiko Yamamoto, Regional Director, Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, gives an official view of the ILO on the issue, the interview with Shri Harish Rawat, Minister of State for Labour and Employment gives the Government of India`s perspective. The issue also carries an interview with Sr. Jean Divos, the leader of the National Domestic Workers` Movement. The exclusiveness of this issue is also because it collates the rich and diverse experiences of innovators from central trade unions, from independent trade unions and from non-governmental organisations in organising domestic workers. Meeting workers at their residences (in the case of live-out workers), using the ethnic and regional identities of workers, using the religious congregations, engaging unionised middle class employers to sensitise their domestic workers, providing identity cards to domestic workers, starting alternative placement services for domestic workers, starting cooperatives of domestic workers, profession-alising domestic work by upgrading their skills, helping professionalised domestic workers to manage their own services and leading them to strikes and demonstrationsthe experiences in organising domestic workers are diverse and intense. The lead story by Sindhu Menon captures vividly the travails of domestic workers in Delhi.

This issue is dedicated to Sumari, who braved the physical assaults of her employer and is currently confined to a bed, and, despite this, continues to carry a gleam of hope in her eyes. Labour File urges the Government of India to stand by its domestic workers and decisively vote for a Convention followed by Recommendation at the International Labour Conference 2011.


This issue is dedicated to Sumari, who braved the physical assaults of her employer and is currently confined to a bed, and, despite this, continues to carry a gleam of hope in her eyes. Labour File urges the Government of India to stand by its domestic workers and decisively vote for a Convention followed by Recommendation at the International Labour Conference 2011.