JAY JOSHI
The festival of Diwali is fast approaching, and people across all walks of life are looking forward to taking a leave, and spending on celebrations. However, workers in the unorganised sector face many issues when it comes to such simple pleasures. One of the most affected workers during this season are housemaids who provide domestic help services in various cities and towns. Since 2011, the demand has been rising to provide the right to holidays and other facilities for domestic workers to bring them on par with employees in the organised sector.
While organisations such as National Domestic Workers Movement work to promote the cause of domestic workers, many workers themselves seem to be unaware of the facilities they ought to receive, and are fighting different battles altogether.
“Corporate employees get paid leaves, but in the case of domestic workers that is not always the case,” says Indira, a domestic worker from Hubli who currently works in Vasco. “My employers do not cut my salary if I take short leaves, but I know many fellow domestic workers who lose their income if they take leaves. I would welcome legal safeguards that gives us paid holidays. However, the right to holiday is not the biggest issue I am worried about,” she continues. “Employees in the organised sector get insurance coverage for sickness, and continued income after retirement. For housemaids like myself, we have to look to our children after retirement, and barely have any security cover when we fall sick,” says Indira.
On the other hand, Pratibha Naik from Sawantwadi, who now works as a domestic help in Ponda believes there are indeed issues when it comes to holidays. “One or two days does not make a difference, but if I stay at home for a week, it puts a serious dent in my income. This is not so with the corporate employees. I would welcome legal safeguards granting us the right to holidays,” says Pratibha.
While maids say they face issues such as lack of enough holidays, sick leaves, and problems related to payments, employers too state that the maids do not stick to their end of the deal.
Sandhya Kelkar, a teacher from Mardol highlights that a proper system needs to be put in place if such demands are to be implemented. “Accountability is a major issue when it comes to housemaids,” says Kelkar. “Corporate employees are held accountable by systems such as attendance, and submit leave forms before they avail of leaves. There is no such system for housemaids.
Secondly, they work for multiple employers, and their work hours are relatively short for each employer. Secondly, we cannot afford to give leaves as long as one week to domestic help. If such proposal is approved, a solution to this problems must also be worked out,” says Kelkar.
Even so, housemaids face overwhelming odds when it comes to working conditions, explain officials from Goa office of National Domestic Workers Movement. Established in the 1980s in Mumbai, the NDWM works to safeguard the interests of domestic workers around India. In the past 30 years, the movement has established its presence across 17 states of India including Goa.
“One of the demands of NDWM from the government is to fix the minimum wages of domestic workers across India, which has not yet been done,” informed Marie Lou, coordinator at Goa office of NDWM at Porvorim. “Also, there is no provision made for weekly offs and holidays for domestic helpers.
Apart from this, there are many cases where they face exploitation in various ways,” state Lou. She further informed that there is now a Goa Domestic Workers Union, which was established in 2017, and currently has around 1400 registered members. “Additionally, domestic workers do not find work in rural areas and have to move to cities to find work. Working conditions entail spending long hours standing in water, which results in many housemaids developing ailments such as joint-pain in their 40s,” Lou informs.
Thus, while the demand for right to holidays for housemaids is indeed fair, a system for accountability does need to be put in place to ease the situation for employers.
