Increments, leave, healthcare: Will you give your maid her rights?

By Gauri Singh Last week a horrific story of abuse of a minor domestic worker by upper class South Delhi employers left us all in disbelief. The 15-year-old domestic worker was found with deep gashes on her head, dog bites all over her body, and she had not been given proper clothing, to prevent her from leaving the premises. This is without doubt urban slavery. When a gruesome act like this occurs, we are shocked and enraged at the cruelty; but is it really that shocking? Shades of slavery are more a norm than an aberration in the domestic work sector. This is not a problem of a few “bad” people but of a culture that demands servitude, quickly turning to slavery in the confinements of private homes where employer behaviour is unchecked. If we were to create a job description for a domestic worker, subservience would rank among the attributes valued the most. Domestic workers do not have employers; they have masters, and at best a benevolent master. When we come across hideous incidents such as the recent one in South Delhi, we are quick to place the blame on unscrupulous placement agencies, failure of the state in protecting the rights of these workers, and an errant employer. While the rights issues of domestic workers need to be addressed with utmost seriousness and urgency, as this sector employs millions of women, it is equally important for us as employers to introspect our behaviour and attitude towards them. Ironically, the predominant narrative in the domestic work sector is not the shades of slavery but the great angst that exists among employers in urban India. The employers have a disproportionate sense of being the aggrieved party, constantly being held to ransom by domestic workers. This angst takes various forms – having been in the business of providing domestic workers to households for over two years now, I have heard employers talk about being hurt, calling their workers thankless, and even lamenting about the lack of professional ethics! [caption id=“attachment_116421” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The Vasant Kunj domestic help abuse case has put the spotlight on the rights of such workers. (Representational image). Reuters[/caption] As a part of the formal work force we have come to expect certain employee rights and benefits. These include fixed wages and leaves, defined skill sets and job description, work and rest hours, insurance, incentive plans and annual increments, to name a few. We measure the quality of our jobs based on these criteria. These parameters define an employer - employee relationship. Almost all these employment terms are absent in the current domestic workers’ employment contract. The age of the ‘benevolent master’ is over. This does not mean that it is the end of domestic work; it means that it is the age of a service provider and not a servant. Today labourers expect to be treated like workers providing a service, and their expectations are the same as yours or mine. Domestic workers expect a good natured boss, a good pay packet with perks such as health and social security, respect for their work hours and most importantly, basic dignity.   These attributes are beginning to take centrestage and these are exactly the things that the benevolent master neglects – fair wage and leave policy, timely incrementa, insurance and overtime. No, it is not okay to have your 16-year-old worker up at 1 am curled up in your kitchen while you entertain. No, it is not okay to give your maid the food that you think is too old for you to eat. No, it is not okay to reprimand her in a tone that you wouldn’t dream of using on any of your own. And no, she can’t work a couple of extra tasks or an hour extra unless you pay for the over time. Yes, you must take her to the doctor and ensure she gets medical attention or else buy her insurance. And in doing so, you are merely following employment norms and not being benevolent. I don’t know a single working person who has not called in sick in order to spend time with family in addition to their eight monthly offs. Domestic workers also have families and therefore taking a day off doesn’t imply that they are shirking their duties thereby making them liable for serious chastisement. We spend over a thousand rupees on ordering pizzas for one dinner but we spend weeks, sometimes even months in agreeing to an increment of five hundred rupees per month for our maid. This is irrational behaviour. In fact, the reason why the domestic housekeeping sector has not been able to formalise and scale is because is because the market’s behaviour is not rational. We get extremely stressed and our days become unmanageable when the worker does not turn up for a day, but yet, we are not willing to invest a few hundred rupees to improve the service quality. As employers we need to understand that domestic work is a low paying job, hence taken up by women at the bottom of the pyramid, usually illiterate rural migrants, who might fail to deliver services perfectly and consistently to your specific requirement. As employers, we can complain about the lack of quality and accountability of the work only if we, in turn, are offering a fair employment contract. We as employers need to make a paradigm shift from being a benevolent master to a good employer. Gauri Singh is the CEO of The Maids’ Company, a social enterprise providing domestic housekeeping services to households in Gurgaon.