Now Countries Need to Ratify the New Global Domestic Workers Rule
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Across the world, working men and women celebrated the historic vote June 16 by the UN’s International Labor Organization creating a new global rule to protect domestic workers. Now the work begins to make sure countries implement the rule, known as a convention, and make protections for domestic workers a reality.
In a joint statement, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Ai-Jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Worker Alliance (NDWA), said the convention “acknowledges that domestic work—work performed in or for private homes—is indeed work.”
Further, the people who perform this work—overwhelmingly women, migrants and people from historically marginalized communities—are indeed workers, and thus entitled to the same rights and protections that all other workers enjoy.
Human Rights Day: Fighting for Domestic Workers
Today, International Human Rights Day, the National Domestic Worker Alliance is joining with domestic workers around the world to launch a campaign to call for improved labor standards for their industry.
Domestic work, which includes housecleaning, child-care and elder care, is not covered by many basic labor laws, leaving those who perform this work extremely vulnerable to abuse and exploitation on the job. Domestic workers across the globe are demanding the creation of international labor standards for domestic work through the passage of an International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention on Domestic Work. They also are proposing policy changes at the state and national levels to ensure basic labor protections for domestic workers.
