News

Trade union pressure around the world is growing for a new International Labour Organisation convention to protect the growing number of domestic workers - the majority of whom are women and often migrant workers.

Formal discussion will begin at the 2010 International Labour Conference in Geneva involving representatives of workers, employers and governments. In the meantime the workers’ bureau at the ILO (ACTRAV) is drawing together best examples of laws and practices to help protect domestic workers.

ACTRAV is also due to publish in June a handbook to help unions reach out to migrant workers - with or without documentation. The handbook will encourage unions to press governments to ratify the ILO’s long standing Conventions 97 on equal treatment for migrant workers and 143 that recognises the human rights of undocumented workers.

Opening migration debate

“We want an ILO Convention that will recognise domestic workers as workers with workers’ rights and human rights - because serious violations of these rights do occur in domestic work,” ACTRAV’s Luc Demaret told the UNI Women’s world committee in Nyon. In many countries domestic work is still seen as an extension of unpaid home work and not recognised under employment law. Women domestic workers are also at particular risk of exploitation, abuse and health and safety problems. Verdi Germany’s Ute Brutzki called for more research and information on domestic workers. “There are a lot of dangers for women in domestic employment - we can’t prove this because we don’t have the statistics.”

“We have to develop strategies to organise migrant workers and talk to them through leaflets in their own languages,” said UNI Women’s Monique Marti. “And we have to build links between unions in the sending countries and the receiving countries.”

There are 90 million migrant workers around the world and an increasing number of them are women without families. The average pay rise by migrating from a developing country to a rich country can be11 times their income at home. Migrant workers now make up 6-9% of the labour force in developed countries.

Luc reported on a disconnect in the political debate. There are a growing number of migrant workers filling jobs that workers in the home country no longer choose to do and at a time when the domestic labour force is shrinking. Yet governments increasingly make migration more difficult in the name of security and to appease agitation against migrants.

“Migration flows have not kept pace with trade flows and capital flows,” said Luc. “ The old EU states need 20 million new people by 2050, yet restrictive immigration policies are driven by a need to meet the demands of extreme right wing parties.” He demolished some of the more familiar myths in the migration debate. Migrants do not generally push down wages for local workers (though the migrants themselves may get less pay and work longer hours). Migrants themselves generate jobs and contribute to social security systems that their work in public services helps to sustain. “The growth in irregular migration is a reflection of restrictive migration control policies than a growth in migration,” said Luc.

Luc Demaret, ILO workers' bureau

Many undocumented workers enter host countries legally - but lose their status if they change jobs (in Belgium, which has not ratified Convention 143, migrant workers are effectively tied to an employer for five years) or if their permit is not renewed.

Some are trafficked and highly vulnerable. More than 20 Chinese cockle pickers were drowned in England working for a gangmaster and earlier this week more than 50 Burmese would-be migrants suffocated in a lorry on their way to Thailand.

Many undocumented workers contribute to social security systems through deductions from their pay - but are unable to claim the benefits for fear of being deported.

A recent court decision in Spain - brought by CC.OO - clears the way for Spanish unions to organise and represent undocumented workers.

In Malaysia the UNI Liaison Council has set up help desks to assist migrant workers from Indonesia and elsewhere and offer them a swifter route to settle their problems - documented and undocumented, said UNI-Asia Pacific’s Alice Chang.

Luc called for action by countries that are major exporters of labour to create their own job opportunities to ensure that migration is a choice, not an economic necessity. He urged these countries to sign up to the ILO Conventions so that they can pursue abuses of their nationals through the ILO system.



The situation for migrant workers is getting worse by the day in the United States, reported UNI Women’s outgoing president Barbara Easterling. “Bush is building a wall to keep them out, yet these workers are needed.”

Mercedes Rodriguez Torrejon of CC.OO Spain said that, at the ILO, unions and governments can find agreement on migration issues but “we are lacking a partner” - employer representatives frequently don’t agree.

“We need to organise migrant workers, whether they are documented or not,” said Arlette Puraye of CNE Belgium. “And we need as union s to break down the myths about migrant workers.”

South African unions are planning a major anti-racism seminar following attacks on migrant workers there that saw shops burned and five people killed. She urged unions to do more to help migrant workers.

Maria Helena Ferro, of SNEB Mozambique, reported on the highly favourable conditions of imported managers in foreign enterprises - often being paid five to six times the salary of local managers plus generous expat benefits.

COSATU blankets for Barbara Easterling

and Monique Marti from Louise Plaatjes