Domestic Worker Rights

Millions of domestic workers are employed in countries where they are excluded from national labor laws, including limits to working hours, minimum wage and overtime pay. Domestic workers, who are predominately women and sometimes children, toil invisibly in private homes. Some live on their employer’s premises where, away from the public eye, they often are subject to abuse. Nearly one in five domestic workers are international migrants. The Solidarity Center supports unions around the world as they assist domestic workers in gaining their rights on the job such as in Honduras and Ukraine, where workers formed the first domestic workers union in their countries with the assistance of Solidarity Center partners. Together with the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF) and the U.S.-based National Domestic Workers Alliance, the Solidarity Center supports leadership, gender equality and rights-based training for domestic workers to strengthen their ability to advocate for improved wages and working conditions. Many domestic workers migrate for jobs to the Gulf countries and the Middle East, and the Solidarity Center works to advance their rights with union partners in origin and destination countries, such as the Kuwait Trade Union Federation (KTUF), which launched a migrant worker office that assists domestic workers and other migrant workers experiencing wage theft and other forms of exploitation. The Solidarity Center, which joined with unions and rights organizations in championing passage of the 2011 International Labor Organization’s global treaty (Convention 189) covering domestic worker rights, assists unions in pushing for adoption of the treaty in their countries to ensure domestic work is legally recognized and valued. The Solidarity Center also supports domestic worker unions achieve labor rights in countries such as Mexico, where union partners won the right to written contracts and a ban on employing workers younger than age 15.

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