Domestic workers gathered in India. IDWF/Flickr. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
The voices of ‘workers in the shadow’ may not be loud, yet they are slowly but surely emerging into the sociopolitical landscape of India. Domestic workers of today work in a different system than their sisters of yesteryear. Part-time as well as many full-day workers now live in their own homes, commuting to their employers’ houses as regular places of work. Those of us that work in the unions impress this upon workers: that the employer’s home is not their ‘home’ but their ‘workplace’, their ‘factory’!
Most ‘part timers’ work long hours across many different houses. They suffer caste discrimination and assaults upon their dignity, working without many of the rights enjoyed by other workers, including social security, leave, and various types of protection. The majority are women, as gendered notions of housework consider it natural that young girls should slave away at work that is devalued. Tens of thousands of the domestic workers are to be found in urban and semi-urban houses, invisibly contributing to the economy and the household.
