The Solidarity Center joins with unions in Kenya and around the world in championing ratification of the ILO global treaty Convention 189 covering domestic worker rights. Credit: KUDHEIHA
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.
Domestic workers are among the most invisible workers in the world—yet in Latin America, they are joining together to champion their rights at their workplace and in their communities, says Adriana Paz Ramirez on this week’s episode of The Solidarity Center Podcast....
As a trans domestic worker from Nicaragua working in Guatemala, Francia Blanco says her experiences with verbal and physical abuse, discrimination, and forced labor conditions led her to take action to build a world where trans domestic workers had rights, respect and...
In an historic judgment, the South African Constitutional Court in mid-November recognized that injury and illness arising from work as a domestic worker in a private home is no different to that occurring in other workplaces and equally deserving of compensation....
The ILAW Network is pleased to release reports on the regulation of telework in Mauritius and South Africa. The reports examine the impact of telework on a range of worker rights topics, including the regulation of atypical work, access to health and safety measures,...
The ILAW Network is pleased to release reports on the regulation of telework in Mauritius and South Africa. The reports examine the impact of telework on a range of worker rights topics, including the regulation of atypical work, access to health and safety measures,...
The ILAW Network has undertaken a research series on telework in Europe and Central Asia. National reports examining the regulation of telework in Moldova, Poland, and Ukraine examine the impact of telework on a range of worker rights issues, including work hours and...
The ILAW Network has undertaken a research series on telework in Europe and Central Asia. National reports examining the regulation of telework in Moldova, Poland, and Ukraine examine the impact of telework on a range of worker rights issues, including work hours and...
The ILAW Network has undertaken a research series on telework in Europe and Central Asia. National reports examining the regulation of telework in Moldova, Poland, and Ukraine examine the impact of telework on a range of worker rights issues, including work hours and...
This report is an update to the original Taken for a Ride Issue Brief, released in March of 2021. Download it in English or Spanish.
