CHENNAI: Lalitha works in as many as nine houses every day for a total monthly earning of `7,000. With this meagre money, she has to take care of her drunkard husband and three children, including the elder son who wants to pursue engineering.
“Given our situation, my family wants him to quit studies and take up a job. But I won’t let that happen,” she says with a mother’s steely determination. To ensure that at least her children have a brighter future, she has pledged her jewellery and taken loans from employers. To repay this, in the absence of better remuneration, all she can do is to put in the extra hours.
Lalitha is one of the lakhs of domestic workers who know neither about minimum wages nor the existence of a State Labour Welfare Board for Domestic Workers.
It’s been seven years since the domestic workers in Tamil Nadu began their collective fight to get specified minimum wages of `50 per hour. But conditions, activists feel, still remain the same. “Minimum wage offers solutions to the umpteen problems for these women. They will be able to at least plan some part of their lives,” feels T A Lata, General Secretary of the Domestic Workers Union belonging to the CPM affiliated Centre of Indian Trade Union (CITU).
Latha pegs the total number of domestic workers in the State at around two million, but only around four lakh have registered themselves with the labour board.
“If you go to a slum, one lane will have at least 10 women working as domestic workers. Neither is there any initiative to guide them nor are official records maintained or any accountability,” says Sister Josephine Valarmathi from National Domestic Workers Movement (NDWM), an NGO which works for their welfare.
Registration of domestic workers is essential to ensure that they are not exploited, feel activists. Illustrating the exploitation, R Pavithra, domestic worker from KK Nagar recalled an incident when she was a full time maid in a house. “One night, after finishing all the work, my employer gave me a bowl of curd rice. I suspected it to be the leftover from her son’s lunch box. But since I was hungry and she insisted, I ate it. The next day I fell ill and kept vomiting. My employer only scorned and blamed me for it.” In its 2011 convention for domestic workers, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) had specified a set of rules for these workers which include minimum wages, paid annual and weekly leaves, provision of proper food and accommodation if applicable.
There are about 20 countries including Germany, Argentina, South Africa and Italy that ratified it. India didn’t, but it accepted support from ILO where a task force on domestic workers was commissioned and chaired by the Ministry of Labour and a national policy for domestic workers containing priority measures such as minimum wages, health and welfare measure was drafted. However, none of this has been applied in the country, allege activists.
“All they ask for is a decent life and support from the government. I hope the officials are apprised of the woeful
situation and do the needful to end their woes,” adds Sr Valarmathi.
