Workers push for Domestic Workers Convention
August 16, 2009
 
Trade unions, domestic worker organizations, migrant workers groups and NGOs re-affirmed their call for a new international treaty on promoting decent work for domestic workers.
 
Workers made this declaration during the “Working World Trialogues” led by the Institute for Labor Studies of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) at the POEA Office in Ortigas on Aug. 11.
 
“Domestic work has historical ties to slavery. Promoting decent work for domestic workers through a new International Convention shall finally break the chains of bonded labor,” said Julius Cainglet, spokesperson of the Federation of Free Workers (FFW).
 
“Domestic workers should be treated like other workers, who are entitled to rights and privileges; humane working conditions including ample time for rest; social protection; and, the right to be heard,” Cainglet added.
 
He noted that several international treaties in the form of an International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention outline labor rights but “conspicuously leave out or exclude domestic workers from its coverage.”
 
These treaties include, among others, the “Holidays with Pay Convention (No. 132),” “Occupational Safety and Health Convention (No. 155),” “Night Work Convention (No. 171)” and “Maternity Protection Convention (No. 183).”
 
Law and Practice Report, ILO questionnaire
 
The ILS’ Working World Trialogues provided a venue for tripartite partners—government, workers and employers to present their views on decent work for domestic workers and share their responses to the “ILO questionnaire” on the same. This is a necessary step before the possibility of a new Convention may be discussed at the International Labor Conference in Geneva in June next year.
 
Ms Linda Wirth, Director of the ILO Subregional Office based in Manila shared the highlights of the ILO Domestic Workers Law and Practice Report. She said that the issue has been an age-old concern of the ILO. “It allows the household and the economy outside the household to function,” she said.
 
“It is the oldest and most important occupation for many women around the world, but is invisible - undervalued and poorly regulated. Domestic Work is work with serious decent work deficits,” Wirth added.
 
Tripartite position
 
The Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP), on the other hand has yet to give its full support to a new ILO Convention. “While we see the need for a new international instrument, we think that it should come in the form of a Recommendation,” said Romeo Garcia, ECOP Research and Advocacy Manager and speaker at the Working World Trialogues.
 
“A Recommendation will accommodate more detailed and specific provisions which can be liberally adopted or interpreted by each state to conform to local situation and circumstances,” Garcia added.
 
Unlike an International Convention, which shall be binding to a state once it is ratified, a Recommendation will serve as a guide for the crafting of national laws and policies. As it is not open for ratification, states are not obligated to implement its provisions.
 
Loreto Soriano, Executive Director of the Federated Association of Manpower Exporters did not comment on the creation of the new international instrument, but renewed calls to amend the Republic Act 8042 or the Magna Carta for Migrant Workers, which he claims provides for too much regulation of recruitment agencies.
 
Government, meanwhile has kept mum on the issue but expressed that its internal process of consultation on decent work for domestic workers has commenced. “Internally, the DOLE Technical Working Group has already come up with a position,” said DOLE Assistant Secretary Ma. Teresa Soriano.
 
Flor Cabatingan of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) delivered the consolidated position of workers groups. She reiterated among others the "need for a written contract" and the "prohibition and criminalization of confiscation by employers of travel and personal documents of migrant domestic workers."

Plea to employers, government
 
The ILS Working World Trialogues lived to its principle of being a means for “co-decision making.” The Working World Trialogues, introduced by DOLE think-tank, Institute for Labor Studies, is a novel consultation process on vital labor issues of today. What began as a discussion on domestic work became an arena for public pleas to the ECOP and government to support the move to craft an International Convention.
 
Participants to the Trialogues believe that employers and government still have time to review their positions until tripartite partners meet again. The Technical Working Group on the Philippine Campaign on Decent Work for Domestic Workers and the Visayan Forum will be holding the 2nd National Domestic Workers’ Summit on Aug. 20-21 at the Occupational Safety and Health Center, Quezon City.
 
A major part of the said program is a rundown of the position of tripartite partners on the proposed Domestic Workers Convention.
 
The Philippine government has until the end of the month to submit the accomplished questionnaire on domestic work to the ILO in Geneva. As a signatory to ILO Convention 144 on Tripartism, government is duty-bound to consult trade unions and employers groups on all matters concerning the ILO. Thus, it has the responsibility to integrate the responses of both workers and employers to the questionnaire