It is officially estimated that in India more than four million people are employed as domestic workers with wages below the statutory minimum wages. However, the unofficial figures put it as 50 million with nearly three-fourths of them being women and teenage girls.
DR VASUDHA MC
Domestic Workers
Modern lifestyle, leisure and growing participation of women in the labour market have resulted in growth in demand and dependence on domestic workers in urban areas. In India, domestic work falls under the category of unregulated and underpaid work. Most of the domestic workers do not have any legal contract with their employers. This leaves them at the mercy of the employer who may choose to pay or deny paying when they are on leave.
It is officially estimated that in India more than four million people are employed as domestic workers with wages below the statutory minimum wages. However, the unofficial figures put it as 50 million with nearly three-fourths of them being women and teenage girls. These domestic helps are first and second generation migrants mainly from rural areas living in extreme conditions of poverty in slums and transit shelters. With rise in the number of women gainfully employed, the dependence on domestic helpers has become an integral part and feature of urban middle and upper class psyche and culture.
Plight of Domestic Workers
But these families had to manage without the help of maids, cooks, nannies, drivers, gardeners, launderers and personal attendants once the COVID-19 lockdown began. These domestic helpers were virtually rendered jobless overnight, for which they were utterly not prepared. These maid-servants are married to auto drivers, construction workers, taxi drivers, street vendors, petty shopkeepers, industrial workers, security guards and the like who were also rendered jobless; putting their families in a crisis situation.
When the lockdown was announced, several housing complexes had banned domestic help; even where they were partially allowed to serve the old, sick and disabled, there was instruction not to share domestic workers owing to need to minimize the chance of wider transmission of the corona virus to multiple households in the complex. The sharing of maids helps domestic workers to earn more and it makes the domestic help affordable for the employer.
During the lockdown, being out of jobs, many migrant domestic workers reportedly left cities and returned to their natives. Not having anything to live on, there has been a reverse migration of workers in huge numbers to cities in all parts of the country. Although the pandemic has affected all sections of society, the domestic helps are perhaps among the worst hit. They hardly have any savings to support them in the absence of work, and whatever little they had has been used up during the pandemic.
Fewer Legal Protections
The surveys reveal that in most of the metropolitan areas, these women get a monthly salary ranging from Rs. 3000-6000 per household per month, and each woman works in three to four households on an average. Young girls join their mothers to work as maids and look after children of families where both husband and wife are working. Though employers were mandated to pay their workers during the lockdown period, most of them were not paid, rendering it hardly possible to meet their expenses on food, shelter and clothing. Therefore, they were dependent on the goodwill and sympathy of their employers as none of the legislation has any way of holding the employer accountable. Over the years there have been several attempts to enact laws to ensure their rights such as minimum wages, regulating the number of working hours, mandating regular holidays, and addressing physical and sexual harassment, but nothing has been formalized.
The need of the hour is that we must stop looking at them as the carriers of disease. Secondly, domestic workers are equally vulnerable to the virus from people in the homes that they work, as they will need to move about in many different homes. These women also have children and elderly in their homes and need to stay healthy and work. And it is also time to recognize the value of their work in the lives of middle-class and upper middle-class households. They should no longer be viewed as “helpers” but recognized as workers and should have all the rights and privileges of workers as defined by our labour laws. It is unfortunate that despite being in such large number and being indispensable for their services they continue to be in the unorganized sector, which represents 90% of workers in India and are not being covered under the labour laws relating to payment and welfare.
Though there are a few legal provisions that give them some degree of protection, such as the Unorganised Social Security Act 2008, Sexual Harassment against Women at Workplace Act, 2013, and some minimum wages provisions at the State level, there is no comprehensive legislation to address this sector. The Government directive to treat the workers, like government employees, factory workers, as being on duty during lockdown period, was not made applicable to them, rendering them more vulnerable to hardships and untold miseries, and they continue to be dependent on the goodwill of their employers.
Incomplete Efforts
On March 31, 2020, a Public Interest Litigation on the woes and miseries of migrant workers came up for hearing before the Supreme Court of India. The petition sought protection and relief for millions of migrant workers fleeing cities during lockdown seeking government intervention to provide basic necessities like food, shelter and medical help. Although the PIL included domestic workers in its petition, when problems relating to the migrants came to be addressed the domestic workers were conveniently left out.
In 2019, the Government had proposed to bring forth a draft National Policy on Domestic Workers which seeks to recognize domestic workers as representing a profession and thereby making provisions for certain basic rights to these workers like right to minimum wages, protection from exploitation and access to grievance redressal mechanisms. Though it was announced in June 2019, it may take quite some time to come in operation as an enforceable legislation. Had it been handled expeditiously the domestic workers would have had far more easier days during the unprecedented lockdown period. Hope the breakout of the pandemic would act as a catalyst and a reminder to the Government to take up this legislative initiative as a priority to uphold the dignity of their services and protect them from miseries and exploitation.∎
Dr. Vasudha MC is a professor of Sociology and a keen observer of social structures and dynamisms.
