Ten years after the adoption of a historic convention of the International Labor Organization (ILO) which reaffirmed the existence of their rights at work, domestic workers are continuing always fighting to have their status as workers and people providing essential services recognized.

According to a new report published by the ILO, in a decade and for many of them, there has been no improvement in working conditions. The latter have even been degraded by the COVID-19 pandemic.

An ILO press release, sent Thursday, June 17, 2021 to the AIP, recalls that at the height of the crisis, the job losses suffered among domestic workers ranged from 5 to 20% in most European countries, as well as in South Africa and Canada. In the Americas, the situation was even more serious, with losses amounting to between 25 and 50%. During the same period, job losses among other employees were less than 15% in most countries.

In the European Union of 27 member countries, for those who kept their jobs, domestic workers faced a significant impact on their working hours, ranging from a reduction of 78% in Slovakia to around 47% in Portugal and 21% in Italy.

According to the figures in the report, the 75.6 million domestic workers around the world (or 4.5% of employees worldwide) have suffered significantly, which, in turn, has also affected households that depend on these people for their daily needs.

The report states that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the worsening of working conditions which were already very poor. Domestic workers have been more vulnerable to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic due to persistent gaps in labor law and social protection. This is particularly the case for the more than 60 million domestic workers who operate in the informal economy.

Ten years ago, the adoption of this landmark domestic workers convention was hailed as a breakthrough for tens of millions of domestic workers around the world, most of whom are women.

Since then, a number of progress has been made, such as a drop of more than 16 percentage points in the number of domestic workers who are totally excluded from labor laws and regulations.

In the European Union, all domestic workers are covered by labor law, included in existing minimum wage provisions, have the right to weekly rest and have a legal right to paid annual leave, even if there are many disparities from one country to another.

According to the document, 99.1% of domestic workers in the EU-27 are legally covered by at least one branch of social security with 66.7% covered by all branches of social protection, an exception compared to other regions.

However, globally, a good number of domestic workers (36%) remain totally excluded from the scope of application of the labor code, in particular in Asia and the Pacific as well as in the Arab States, where these gaps are the most important.

Even when covered by labor and social security laws, as in the EU, the issue of their implementation remains an important source of exclusion and informal work.

According to the report, only one in five domestic workers (18.8 per cent) has effective social security coverage linked to their work.

Domestic work remains a predominantly female sector, employing 57.7 million women who represent 76.2% of domestic workers. While women make up the majority of the workforce in Europe and Central Asia as well as the Americas, men outnumber women in the Arab States (63.4%) and North Africa, and make up just under half of all domestic workers in South Asia (42.6 percent).

The vast majority of domestic workers are employed for half of them (38.3 million) in Asia and the Pacific, largely due to the weight of China, another significant part (17.6 million) being in the Americas.

Today’s domestic workers are better organized and are more likely to defend their views and interests themselves. Their organizations, as well as employers’ organizations of domestic workers, have played an important role in the progress made so far, the study’s rapporteurs conclude.

Source: Agence Ivoirienne de Presse