Domestic Work is Work
But domestic workers are denied their rights.
Domestic work is real work. Increasingly in demand, it creates paid job opportunities for domestic workers to support their families. They also provide vital care for the elderly, children and people with disabilities, allowing the family members to work outside the home.
Domestic work is highly skilled work. It spans a multitude of responsibilities ranging from care work, cooking, cleaning, and housekeeping.
However, despite the increasing demand for their skills, domestic workers in the UK are discriminated against, underpaid and denied access to normal employment protections that benefit other workforces.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We’re asking the UK Government to officially recognise that domestic work is work and ratify International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 189.
ILO 189: Domestic Work is Real Work
In 2011, Convention 189 was adopted by the ILO. This landmark international treaty was a statement of the decent working conditions and fundamental rights domestic workers should have. This includes the right to a minimum wage, protections from sexual harassment and adequate rest. It also crucially recognises that “domestic work is real work.” ILO 189 has been ratified by 35 states but not by the United Kingdom.
Convention No. 189 defines domestic work as “work performed in or for a household or households”. This work may include tasks such as cleaning the house, cooking, washing and ironing clothes, taking care of children, or elderly or sick members of a family, gardening, guarding the house, driving for the family, even taking care of household pets.
Under the Convention, a domestic worker is “any person engaged in domestic work within an employment relationship”.
The UK’s failure to ratify ILO 189 means thousands of domestic workers, including migrant domestic workers, are not guaranteed their basic rights leaving them at risk of exploitation and abuse.
Women’s work?
Domestic work is undervalued, under-protected, and gendered. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), this labour is mainly carried out by women and girls, many of whom are migrants or from disadvantaged or marginalised communities.
Historically, domestic or “reproductive” labour has been undervalued or dismissed as “low-skilled” because it has largely performed by women in the home– for free. This structural devaluation underpins the continuing failure to recognise domestic work as a form of employment.
By not ratifying ILO 189, the UK Government perpetuates the idea that domestic work in private homes does not deserve the same protections or regulation as other forms of labour.
In addition to risks of violence and precarious employment status, migrant domestic workers in the UK must navigate an increasingly restrictive and cruel immigration system.
Migrant domestic workers’ experiences expose the gaps in immigration policies, employment rights, modern slavery protections and failures to tackle violence against women and girls.
But they are often left out of conversations on immigration and employment rights, modern slavery and domestic violence against women and girls.
That needs to change. It starts by recognising that domestic work is work.
We stand alongside migrant domestic workers to demand the UK Government ratify the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Convention 189