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Fair recruitment and decent work for women migrant workers in South Asia and the Middle East - Global Component - Midterm Evaluation
- eval_number:
- 2681
- eval_title:
- Fair recruitment and decent work for women migrant workers in South Asia and the Middle East - Global Component - Midterm Evaluation
- location:
- region:
- Arab States
- country:
- Jordan
- region:
- Arab States
- country:
- Lebanon
- region:
- Asia and the Pacific
- country:
- Nepal
- region:
- Inter-Regional
- country:
- Inter-Regional
- region:
- Asia and the Pacific
- country:
- India
- region:
- Asia and the Pacific
- country:
- Bangladesh
- eval_url:
- https://analyticstest.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/eval/2681
- lessons_learned:
- description:
- Advocacy for legislation in India on domestic work is ongoing. In the meanwhile, the Jharkhand branch of the National Domestic Workers Union is in the process of registering a cooperative of domestic workers that will contribute to formalization of the occupation. This initiative is being supported by WIF. The cooperative plans to negotiate contracts with institutions and Resident Welfare Societies for cleaning of their premises by a team of domestic workers. The contracts will include employer contribution to Provident Fund and Health Insurance for the team members. They will be trained in using professional cleaning equipment and the cooperative will invest part of its share capital in such equipment. All union members are encouraged to buy shares in the cooperative with their savings. In return they can avail of loans on favourable terms for starting small businesses that can complement their incomes from domestic work.
- context:
- Domestic workers in Jharkhand have greatly benefited from forming a union and taking collective action to ensure decent wages for various tasks, four days off per month and access to some degree of social security. They still do not have work contracts and can be laid off at any time. Besides, skills training does not give them access to higher wages. Regular meetings with groups of domestic workers in different neighbourhoods and leadership training of the more enterprising among them has created the bonds necessary for the success of a cooperative.
- success:
- Acting as members of a cooperative radically changes the unequal employment relationship in domestic work, making it more equal and formal and giving professional status to an occupation that is often considered unskilled. It also gives them access to social security and to fixed term contracts. It empowers women and gives them more decision making power in their working as well as living spheres.
- challenges:
- The process of registering a cooperative is complicated and time consuming. It has taken JGKU a couple of years to get to the stage of opening a bank account and the registration certificate is still to be received. It would be difficult for a group of domestic workers to take this step without support from people who can do the necessary paper work and deal with government officials .
- administrative_issues:
- This initiative is part of the second phase of work being undertaken by WIF with JGKU.
- comments:
- There are at present 107 union members who have bought shares in the cooperative. There is scope for expansion to all JGKU members and beyond to other unions of domestic workers and further to workers in insecure employment.
- url:
- https://analyticstest.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/lessons/232170
- themes:
- theme:
- Labour legislation
- category:
- International Labour Standards
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