Domestic workers, baby-sitters, caregivers. They are invisible workers, often migrants and women, that’s for them that Meps at European Parliament asked to recognize them a professional status.
“Recognizing their work as “professional” jobs would discourage exploitation, forced labour and human trafficking, said Meps in the resolution presented last week at the European Parliament in Brussels.
Thoughts can easily run to the movie “Bread and Roses” by Ken Loach, to the women who were working as cleaning ladies, without rights, mostly Mexican migrants, without rules, they could not make their rights recognized. Simply invisibles as most of the domestic workers are until now.
Domestic workers, the EU Parliament resolution
In the world there are at least 52.6 millions of domestic workers, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO), 42,6 millions are women. In Europe domestic workers are at least 2.6 million, 27% of them works in Italy. But it is difficult to count an exact number of domestic workers because not all of them have a contract regularly registered, they are quite often without any social benefit and health care assistance.
However “Domestic workers and carers enable us to follow our careers, and enjoy our social lives. We entrust them with our homes, our children, and our parents. But, they are invisible, undeclared, victims of insecurity and social exclusion. Also, most are women, working long hours with no days off, without medical cover or pension plans”, said rapporteur Kostadinka Kuneva (GUE/NGL, EL).
The resolution voted by the EU Parliament calls for a “professionalization” of domestic work: workers in this sector need to be represented in all national labour, healthcare, social care and anti-discrimination laws. They have to be enabled to join trade unions.
EU member states, Meps say, should guarantee a larger access to quality health care assistance,
for example for elderly and children, to reduce incentives to hire carers illegally, but also to provide a career for this kind of domestic workers in social care assistance.
Furthermore, the resolution calls for “a professionalization of domestic work to turn precarious and undeclared female work into recognized jobs, which would give domestic workers and carers social protection rights”. And Meps call ask to the EU Commission to present a proposal on “framework for recognition of the status of non-professional carers, which offers them remuneration and social protection during the time they perform the care tasks”.
The “service vouchers” scheme in Belgium and the “universal service employment cheque (CESU)” in France, according to Meps, should be considered as an example of successful models that generated a positive impact in the social and labour conditions of workers in this sector.
Migrants’ domestic workers conditions
Women, domestic workers and migrants unlikely conciliate work life and family. They take care of children of their employers but they cannot bring up their own children, quite often they have to send them back to their countries of origin. They bring up their children at distance.
In general, more than 2 domestic workers out of 5 are not entitled to be paid a minimum wage, and more than a third have no right to take maternity leave, according to ILO data.
Illness, accidents and pregnancies usually cause loss of job for migrants domestic workers, according to the study by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights.
In Italy the percentage of domestic workers born in another EU country in 2014 was about 46%, while 31% was the rate of the ones from extra-EU countries, (Inps data).
Furthermore, according to Eurostat, in Europe the percentage of population aged more than 80 years old will triple by 2060 and so there will be a large need of domestic workers for elderly care. So it will be necessary to take in consideration immigrant inflows of domestic workers.
Domestic workers, baby-sitters, caregivers. They are invisible workers, often migrants and women, that’s for them that Meps at European Parliament asked to recognize them a professional status.
“Recognizing their work as “professional” jobs would discourage exploitation, forced labour and human trafficking, said Meps in the resolution presented last week at the European Parliament in Brussels.
