Domestic Workers In India: Lack Of Security, Low Wages Push Helps To A Life Of Uncertainty | Culture News
For most middle and upper-middle-class homes in India, domestic workers are an integral part of households. These are the people who work for their employers to make their life at home easier, by taking up the bulk of their domestic chores. And when they are cleaning your homes, taking care of your babies, and cooking your meals, at the end of the month, they are only left with a salary which is often inadequate for running their households and no security. There are no social security benefits like pension and ESI (Employees’ State Insurance).
The National Platform for Domestic Workers (NPDW), which was constituted in 2012, recently held a press conference. According to a report in the Indian Express, the meeting was held “to raise the demand for a legislation that will cover those who are part of the informal sector, with “specific cover” for domestic workers.” Members of NPDW demand, the same report mentions, that places where domestic helps work be treated as ‘workplaces’ and that it should be ensured that they get minimum wages and social security benefits like pensions.
To make matters worse, a large majority of employers of these helps – often the elite and nouveau rich – believe in the traditional divide between who they consider as “masters” and “servants”. It’s a common practice to see helps eating later than their employees, sitting or even sleeping on the floors, rather than chairs and beds, and eating out of different utensils among other practices – in fact, such scenes are so common that it doesn’t even strike many people that there’s something amiss in these practices.
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Alka Kumari, a domestic help working in Saket, shares, “I work in three houses a day and I end up making Rs 18,000 a month. My husband has lost his job and the entire responsibility of my family – my husband, three children and my father-in-law – is dependent on my earnings. I work tirelessly the whole day and when I get back home after 6 pm, I have to do my household chores too. My entire month’s salary gets used up and there’s nothing left for savings. We need a minimum wage and some form of security.”
Another help, Zohra Biwi, who works in Noida, voices a common concern. “What will happen to us when we become old and are physically not capable of toiling and earning our living? Without any security, any pension our future is bleak. We need some sort of safety net.”
