Abstract
This chapter explores how local and national organizations of domestic workers can shape policy in and through international organizations. Drawing on fieldwork conducted during negotiations over International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention No. 189, “Decent Work for Domestic Workers,” in 2011, it explains how the ILO became a venue for the global alignment of domestic worker activists and their NGO and trade union allies, and how the organizations that emerged from that moment continued the work of putting the convention into effect on the ground through national ratification campaigns. Through this policy achievement, it also shows how domestic work helped put migration and informal work on the ILO’s agenda.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The IDWN and its ally representatives used these expressions in their public statements as part of their strategy to demand rights. International Labour Conference, author fieldnotes, 2010.
- 3.
Statement by Juan Somavía to the opening 2010 Domestic Workers Committee, author fieldnotes, ILC, 2010.
- 4.
For a discussion of “siloization” in the ILO, see Mahon and Michel, this volume.
- 5.
For a history of domestic worker activism in the US, see Nadasen 2015.
- 6.
Meeting between Juan Somavía and IDWN leaders, June 4, 2010.
- 7.
This vote also included the accompanying set of Recommendations. For the full policy document see ILO Convention 189 [http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::p12100_instrument_id:2551460] and Recommendation No. 201 9 http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO:12100:P12100_INSTRUMENT_ID:2551502:NO].
- 8.
Only Swaziland opposed the Convention vote. Some experts suggest that this may have been an error, given the country’s general support for the Convention throughout the process. With the abstentions, the Convention passed with an 83 percent majority.
- 9.
- 10.
Myrtle Witbooi, statement delivered to the media at the 2011 ILC, June 15, 2011.
- 11.
Statement to the international media, June 16, 2011, United Nations.
- 12.
See the IDWN’s “Platform of Demands” for a full list of policy priorities.
- 13.
Domestic workers continually used this expression to point out that policy alone would have little meaning in their lives without changes on the ground.
- 14.
Jennifer Fish worked with the International Domestic Workers Network to document their participation in the 2010 and 2011 International Labor Conferences in Geneva. She has followed the organization through its emergence as the first global union, conducting interviews with several of its key founders and working directly with domestic worker organizations at the national level. Moriah Shumpert conducted scholar-activist fieldwork with the South African Domestic Service and Allied Workers Union and the International Domestic Workers Federation in 2015. She collected a series of interviews on models of organizing and conducted ethnographic research on unionization and transnational movements in South Africa and Thailand. This chapter is based upon our collective data and shared analyses of the relationship among grassroots, national and transnational organizing.
- 15.
Song created by the IDWN and performed throughout the 2010 and 2011 International Labour Conferences.
- 16.
Formal speech to the ILC Plenary, June 9, 2011.
- 17.
Public demonstration speech, June 10, 2010.
- 18.
Ibid.
- 19.
Speech at the closing session of the Workers’ Group of the Committee on Domestic Work, June 10, 2011
- 20.
Domestic workers and their ally spokespersons used this term repeatedly to bring an affective appeal into the ILO process.
- 21.
Drawn from the 2010 public statement of Nisha Varia, Senior Researcher, Human Rights Watch at the Committee on Domestic Work discussions, June 12, 2010.
- 22.
This slogan, “the work that makes all other work possible,” later became widely used in the National Domestic Workers Alliance’s 2014 campaign in the United States.
- 23.
These terms “most vulnerable” and “custodians of a legacy” came up frequently in both years’ discussions to refer to domestic workers’ marginalized position and their agency to set new policies.
- 24.
International Labour Conference, author fieldnotes, 2010.
- 25.
Elisabeth Prügl, speech at the Poster Exhibit sponsored by the International Working Group of Domestic Workers, Maison des Associations, Geneva, June 9, 2010.
- 26.
For an analysis of human rights in the context of relevant social struggles, see Sen 2012.
- 27.
Interview with Jennifer Fish, conducted on June 8, 2011.
- 28.
Speech at the opening meeting of the Workers Group of the Committee on Domestic Work, June 1, 2010.
- 29.
Domestic workers advocates repeatedly echoed this statement. At the same time, they called for consideration of the “special” nature of this work, thus creating what historian Eileen Boris has called a hybrid construction of domestic work because of their dual plight for recognition as workers and consideration as a special category. For further discussion of this concept, see Boris and Klein 2015 and Smith 2012.
- 30.
Lyrics provided by Ip Fish Pui-Yu, June 2011.
- 31.
As depicted in an event flyer from Asian Domestic Workers for the June 8, 2010 demonstration.
- 32.
International Domestic Workers Network, 2010. Platform of Demands. Geneva: International Labour Conference, 99th Session.
- 33.
Interview with Sofia Trevino of WIEGO, conducted June 10, 2011.
- 34.
Halimah Yacob, closing speech to the Workers Group of the Committee on Domestic Work, June 10, 2011.
- 35.
Interview with Jennifer Fish, conducted June 16, 2011.
- 36.
- 37.
Vicky Kanyoka, speech to the Tripartite Committee on Domestic Work,
ILC, Geneva, 3 June 2010.
- 38.
The ILC discussions used these working figures in the negotiations, recognizing that accurate estimates had not yet been attained. For the most contemporary assessment of domestic work and migration, see ILO 2015.
- 39.
Ibid.
- 40.
Luc Demaret, interview by Natacha David, International Trade Union Confederation, June 4, 2010.
- 41.
Public statement at the opening meeting on gender just prior to the opening of the 2010 ILC discussion on Decent Work for Domestic Workers, June 6, 2010.
- 42.
Hester Stephens, General Secretary, South African Domestic Service and Allied Workers Union, in discussion with the author, June, 2013.
- 43.
See the final Convention articles at: http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C189.
- 44.
Ibid.
- 45.
Ibid.
- 46.
Public statement of the French government, author fieldnotes, ILC, 2010.
- 47.
Ibid.
- 48.
International Labour Conference, author fieldnotes, 2010.
- 49.
Ibid. The speaker is apparently referring to the “kafala” system through which migrant workers are sponsored in the Gulf States. The system is, however, rife with exploitation, especially of female migrants; see Human Rights Watch 2014.
- 50.
Statement at an NGO domestic worker demonstration, Geneva, author fieldnotes, 2011.
- 51.
Maria Elena Valenzuela, meeting statement at the International Labour Organization Global Action Programme on Migrant Domestic Workers and Their Families Advisory Board Meeting, February 4, 2014; author meeting notes.
- 52.
Sringatin, interview by Celia Mather, WIEGO, June 8, 2010.
- 53.
Ip Pui-Yu, “To the Plenary of the International Labour Conference,” speech to the ILC, Geneva, June 9, 2011.
- 54.
Ibid.
- 55.
Statement by Halimah Yacob at the ILC discussions, June 5, 2010; author fieldnotes.
- 56.
Sam Gurney, “Statements on Global Mobilization of Domestic Workers,” speech at the domestic worker/NGO demonstration at the Broken Chair monument at UN Headquarters, Geneva, June 10, 2010.
- 57.
Dan Gallin, former IUF General Secretary, in discussion with Jennifer Fish, June 2012.
- 58.
Interview with Jennifer Fish, conducted June 16, 2011.
- 59.
Interview with Celia Mather, conducted June 13, 2010.
- 60.
Closing statement by of the Australian Government to the Domestic Workers Committee, June 15, 2011.
- 61.
Interview with Jennifer Fish, conducted June 16, 2011.
- 62.
Interview with Jennifer Fish, conducted June 15, 2011.
- 63.
Betsey McGee, public statement at the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung panel discussion at the ILC, Tuesday, June 7, 2011.
- 64.
Ai-Jen Poo, letter to the NDWA and its supporters reporting on her observation of the 2011 ILC discussions.
- 65.
Betsey McGee, statement at the IDWN closing meeting at the ILC, June 11, 2011.
- 66.
Myrtle Witbooi, address given during a global seminar hosted by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, New York, September 28, 2015.
- 67.
Interview with Moriah Shumpert, conducted September 27, 2015.
- 68.
Interview with Moriah Shumpert, conducted September 25, 2015.
- 69.
Interview with Moriah Shumpert, conducted September 26, 2015.
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Fish, J.N., Shumpert, M. (2017). The Grassroots-Global Dialectic: International Policy as an Anchor for Domestic Worker Organizing. In: Michel, S., Peng, I. (eds) Gender, Migration, and the Work of Care. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55086-2_10
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