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The silence around domestic workers and their working conditions are deafening. Significantly, the workers are not male breadwinners, but overwhelmingly women, who scrub floors, do laundry and care for employers’ children. Many domestic workers suffer physical and emotional abuse at the hands of employers. Yet so many people of good standing today that were raised by domestics seem the most quiet. Do you remember the term ‘servant’ and ‘maid.’ It is sad.  What does the law say?

Ray Mungoshi, a doctoral candidate and researcher at the Social Law Project at the University of the Western Cape, which houses the Domestic Workers’ Research Project, has this to say. Since 2003 employers have been required to register domestic workers and gardeners with the Unemployment Insurers Fund (UIF). Domestic workers could now also tap into national security schemes in hard times.  The workers became subject to the same legislative provisions that are applicable to all employees in 1994.

Most importantly Ray states among these are the Labour Relations Act, which provides for protection against unfair dismissal and the right to organise and strike, and the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, which lays down minimum working conditions for employers. Also, the Employment Equity Act protects all employees against unfair discrimination, while the Skills Development Act creates a framework for improving the skills of workers on a sectoral basis. He further explains that the Sectoral Determination No 7 (SD7) introduced minimum wages for the domestic worker sector, breaking a decades-long cycle of low remuneration in many cases dictated by employers. Currently the wage range from R844.90 and R1 1442.86, depending on the municipal area and the number of hours a week worked.

These wages are subject to annual increases of 8 percent or more if the inflation rate is higher than 10 percent. In terms of SD7, domestic workers should not exceed 45 ordinary working hours a week and 15 hours overtime. Overtime pay should be calculated at one-and-a-half times the ordinary rate, with written information about pay being provided to the workers. Also, SD7 provides for at least three weeks’ paid annual leave, paid sick leave, up to five days’ paid family responsibility leave and four months’ unpaid maternity leave. It also prohibits child labour and forced labour and lays down periods of notice to be given on termination of employment. This legislation, on paper appears to protect the labour rights of the domestic worker, but enforcing it has proved to fall short.

On the 22 April 2010 the Cape Argus reported on how five teenage girls believed to be the victims of a suspected human trafficking ring operating in Parow. They were lured from Prieska a rural area in the Northern Cape after being promised good jobs and salaries. Instead they had been forced to work in a woman’s house and in her friends' shops. They also claimed that they were fed only dry bread slices in the morning with baked beans for supper. This is only the top of the ice berg. From some sources it was reported that this practice has being going on for years here in the Western Cape. There is a bigger fear and concern now that the World Cup is on our doorstep, that human trafficking will increase, not only for cheap labour but for sexual exploitation and other abuses.

Unions and the Federation of Unions should make a more concerted effort to empower the domestic workers with vigorous awareness programmes of their rights. Bliz campaigns are not the answer, but long term protracted efforts should be in place with clear indicators and outcomes.  Myrtle Witbooi who has been on the forefront of the domestic workers’ struggle says “My dream is to see domestic workers earn a living wage, live with their families and get world-wide recognition”. Myrtle said “when we ask for protection as domestic workers, people are skeptical, forgetting that we are the same people they are willing to grant rights to as women…You sit at home and we serve you food, clean your homes, take care of your children and scrub floors. We don’t want these rights tomorrow, we want all that now.”