The Solidarity Center supports domestic workers' efforts to win their rights on the job and develop long-term policies for promoting decent work. Solidarity Center programs have helped partner organizations develop organizing strategies, advocate for policy change, and support international efforts to promote a standard-setting international convention on domestic work.
Around the world, domestic workers provide vital services for their employers including cleaning, cooking, caring for children and the elderly, repair and maintenance work, gardening, driving, and caring for household animals. Their work is a valuable social and economic foundation—allowing their employers to balance work and family obligations.
Domestic work plays an increasingly noticeable role in the global economy. According to the ILO, the worldwide demand for domestic work has resulted in a steady increase in these jobs over the past two decades. The ILO now estimates that there are “tens of millions” of domestic workers in the world today. Among this number there are a large and increasing number of migrant domestic workers and children under the age of 18.
Poor and often far from home, the overwhelming majority of domestic workers are young women who view the work as an opportunity to earn a living, but too often find themselves vulnerable to abuses—from low wages and long hours to physical abuse and human trafficking. Despite their growing numbers, their poverty, low social status, and isolation put distance between them and the political and social structures that could support them.
The trade union movement has increasingly lent its strength to support calls for domestic worker rights. Established trade unions are joined in many places by nascent domestic worker unions who are developing innovative organizing models and advocating at all levels of government to bring domestic work out of the shadows through access to social services and labor law protection.
The Solidarity Center supports these trends by encouraging the innovative attempts of partner organizations in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Indonesia, and Kenya to empower an entire sector of workers, while linking support for their organizing and advocacy efforts to a larger, global movement.
ILO Takes Big Step Toward Domestic Worker Rights. The International Labor Organization took a giant step forward in the fight to create workplace justice for millions of domestic workers around the world. At its International Labor Conference in Geneva, the ILO began the process to establish a first-ever international convention to protect the rights of domestic workers. Cross=posted from
AFL-CIO Now blog
Global Network Pushes for Domestic Worker Convention. The Solidarity Center stands with a global network formed to recognize the dignity of domestic workers, promote domestic workers' efforts to defend their rights, and call on trade union partners to support a new ILO convention for domestic workers.
Domestic Workers in the Dominican Republic Unite for Decent Work. The Solidarity Center supports worker associations that promote and protect the rights of domestic workers. ASOMUCI, an association of women workers in the Dominican Republic’s second largest city, Santiago de los Caballeros, reaches out to both Haitian migrant and Dominican domestic workers and trains them on their worker rights, including their right to join a union.
Solidarity Center Partners Fight for Domestic Worker Rights in Indonesia. With the help of the Solidarity Center, unions and NGO partners in Indonesia are supporting efforts to promote domestic worker rights.
Kenyan Union Makes Domestic Worker Rights a Strategic Priority. Thanks to the Solidarity Center and its Kenyan union partner, more than 3,000domestic workers in Nairobi and Kisumu are proud union members.
