The Decent Work for Domestic Workers Convention and Recommendation, 2011

Abstract

The international landscape on the regulation of domestic work is changing dramatically. At the hundredth session of the International Labour Conference (ILC) in June 2011, the International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted the historic Decent Work for Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189) and accompanying Recommendation No. 201. These new international labor standards come sixty-three years after the ILO adopted its first resolution on the conditions of employment of domestic workers and forty-six years after its second such resolution, which recalled the "urgent need" for standards "compatible with the self-respect and human dignity which are essential to social justice" for domestic workers. The robust, comprehensive international norms were adopted after two decades in which the ILO's standard setting has been deeply criticized and its tripartite structure repeatedly challenged to become more representative. Since additional critique of the ILO standards system emerged at the ILC's 101st session in 2012, it would be an overstatement to suggest that the new instruments reflect an unequivocally positive trend in standard setting. Even so, they offer a critical realist basis for considering that ILO standard setting remains salient and that international social dialogue remains possible.

Occupational Health and Safety for Migrant Domestic Workers in Canada: Dimensions of (Im)mobility

“…The “boundarilessness” of domestic workers’ time, lack of labor standards and enforcement that reach into private homes, and the deep shaping power of precarious immigration status and social exclusion were all instrumental to the recommendations in Convention 189 adopted by the International Labour Organization in 2011. 56…”

ILO policy in perspective: Reframing care and care work as a public good. Observations from Europe

“…During the last decades, domestic work as care work has become very important for migrant workers crossing international borders and even continents. It is its global reach, with Europe having re-appeared as a destination for migrant domestic workers, that the adoption of ILO C189 on decent work for domestic workers in 2011 finally succeeded after two failed attempts in the history of the ILO (Blackett, 2012). The promoters of C 189 were successful through building an unprecedented alliance of committed ILO staff, some national unions and international federations, international feminist advocacy groups, and associations of domestic workers mainly from Latin America and Asia.…”

Caregivers’ Education in Global Time: The Case of Filipina Domestic Workers in Singapor

“…Despite the relevance of domestic work, and the importance of home-based care-giving, both nationally and internationally, there is almost no research literature on the experiences and education of women who migrate for domestic work. Most of the literature related to domestic workers focuses on the work conditions, human rights, and legal issues (Blackett, 2012;Choudry & Smith, 2016;Devasahayam & Yeoh, 2007;Elias, 2010;Huang, Yeoh, & Toyota, 2012;Islam & Cojocaru, 2016;Sollund & Leonard, 2012;Suleman, 2015). The social relations of care-work, associated with the household to the function of the labor market in Southeast Asia, provide insights about the development of significant networks of activists, advocacy groups, and NGOs in the region (Carney, 2010;Elias, 2010;Huang, Yeoh, & Toyota, 2012).…”