Abstract
This chapter chronicles the mutual creation of an activist migrant worker movement and the production of a comprehensive global policy that recognized the labour and voices of domestic worker organizations worldwide. Data from direct research with the United Nations’ International Labour Organization offers an analysis of the most substantial movement of migrant workers as policy informers. Key social protection debates elucidate larger global conditions that illuminate larger struggles to develop standards for migrant labour in private households. By positioning the household as a site of global governance and policy formation, this chapter looks at the role of migrants in creating human rights protections. This pivotal policy victory for domestic worker rights is then imagined in a larger arc of efforts to realize social justice in everyday conditions of labour power relations, and their meaning for transnational migrants.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
2010 Public speech at the International Labour Conference, Geneva, Switzerland.
- 2.
For a comprehensive account of these guiding principles under Somavía’s first year of leadership, see the International Labour Organization’s 1999 “Report of the Director-General: Decent Work.”
- 3.
For comprehensive analyses of the global statistics on domestic labour, see International Labour Office. 2013. “Domestic workers across the world: Global and regional statistics and the extent of legal protection.” International Labour Organization. Retrieved April 15, 2013. (http://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/2013/113B09_2_engl.pdf).
- 4.
For a comprehensive analysis of the state’s participation in the export of domestic worker, see Christine Chin’s (1998) account of the relationship between the Philippines and Malaysia see, In Service and Servitude: Foreign Female Domestic Workers and the Malaysian “Modernity” Project. (New York: Columbia University Press).
- 5.
Excerpt from dialogue at the 2015 Sociology of Development Conference at Brown University, March 14, 2015.
- 6.
Dan Gallin spearheaded this movement, as the leader of the IUF. For a more comprehensive history of these leaders’ roles see Fish (2017) Domestic Workers of the World Unite!
- 7.
The ILO is the only tripartite organization within the United Nations. This overarching ideology and practice assure that social dialogue, organizational practice and policymaking include worker and employer delegates from “peak” national associations and government representatives from all member states. The organizational composition, processes, and all of its outputs reflect this balance among the three parties.
- 8.
Marty Chen, founder of WIEGO, originally made this statement at the 2010 ILC meetings among domestic worker representatives.
- 9.
This insight is drawn from a personal conversation with Ai-Jen Poo at the 2011 ILC meetings in Geneva.
- 10.
ILC Fieldnotes, 2010
- 11.
Eileen Boris originally named this notion of a hybrid set of demands for domestic workers. For more analyses, see Making the Woman Worker: Precarious Labour and the Fight for Global Standards, 1919-2019. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- 12.
Excerpt for policy negotiation ethnographic observations, 2010.
- 13.
Excerpt from International Domestic Workers Network meetings at the 2011 ILC.
- 14.
These guiding perspectives emerged throughout most of Juan Somavía’s speeches in both the 2010 and 2011 International Labour Conferences. For full transcripts of Juan Somavía’s speeches, see the closing speech of the ILO Director-General Juan Somavía at the 100th International Labour Conference. https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/multimedia/audio/WCMS_158195/lang--en/index.htm.
- 15.
As a leader of the International Domestic Workers Network, Ernestina Ochoa echoed this sentiment at a press conference during the 2011 International Labour Conference.
References
Anderson, B. (2000). Doing the dirty work? The global politics of domestic labor. London, UK: Zed Books.
Basok, T., & Piper, N. (2013). Justice for migrants: Mobilizing a rights-based understanding of migration. In S. Ilcan (Ed.), Mobilities, knowledge and social justice (pp. 255–276). Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Blackett, A. (2019). Everyday transgressions: Domestic workers’ transnational challenge to international labor law. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Boris, E. (2019). Making the woman worker: Precarious labor and the fight for global standards, 1919–2019. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Boris, E., & Fish, J. (2014). “Slaves no more”: Making global labor standards for domestic workers. Feminist Studies, 40(2), 411–443.
Chang, G. (2001). Disposable domestics: Immigrant women in the global economy. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
Chin, C. (1998). In service and servitude: Foreign female domestic workers and the Malaysian ‘modernity’ project. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Cock, J. (1989). Maids & madams: Domestic workers under apartheid (2nd ed.). London, UK: Women’s Press Limited.
Fish, J. (2017). Domestic workers of the world unite! A global movement for dignity and human right. New York: New York University Press.
Fish, J., Crockett, R., & Ormiston, R. (Directors). (2012). C189: Conventional wisdom. Norfolk, VA: Sisi Sojourner Productions.
Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. (2001). Domestica: Immigrant workers cleaning and caring in the shadows of affluence. Berkeley: University of California Press.
International Domestic Workers Federation. (2019). Five Years a Federation Congress Report.
International Labour Office. (2013). Domestic workers across the world: Global and regional statistics and the extent of legal protection. Geneva: International Labour Organization. http://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/2013/113B09_2_engl.pdf.
International Labour Organization. (1999). Report of the Director-General: Decent work. https://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/ilc/ilc87/rep-i.htm.
International Labour Organization. (2011). Convention 189: Domestic workers, convention. Policy adopted June 16, 2011. For full article reference see: https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C189.
Kanyoka, V. (2010). Statement on domestic workers rights. Speech presented at the 2010 International Labour Conference, Geneva, Switzerland.
Olievera, G. (2018). Motherhood across borders: Immigrants and their children in Mexico and New York. New York: New York Univesity Press.
Parreñas, R. (2001). Servants of globalization: Women, migration and domestic work. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Piper, N. (2017). Global governance of labour migration: from “management” of migration to an integrated rights-based approach. In P. Drahos (Ed.), Regulatory theory—Foundations and applications (pp. 377–394). Canberra: ANU University Press.
Piper, N., Rosewarne, S., & Withers, M. (2017). Migrant precarity: ‘Networks of Labour’ for a rights-based governance of migration. Development and Change, 48(5), 1089–1110.
Solari, C. (2015). Remittances as development? Gender, nation-building & Ukrainian Emigration. Paper presented at the Sociology of Development Conference, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fish, J.N. (2021). Human Rights in Households: Gender and the Global Governance of Migrant Domestic Workers. In: Mora, C., Piper, N. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Gender and Migration. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63347-9_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63347-9_21
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-63346-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-63347-9
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)