Corporate calls to work overtime take home labour for granted

In India, a vast majority of workers work in the unorganized sector, where work conditions and their rights remain abysmal.
In India, a vast majority of workers work in the unorganized sector, where work conditions and their rights remain abysmal.

Summary

  • Advocacy of an extended work-week usually assumes that home chores will be done by someone else. People must rely on either low-paid household workers toiling under harsh conditions or unpaid work—usually done by women. This isn’t sustainable.

Distractions are a constant in our age, while productivity is that gleaming arch on the horizon that seems farther away the closer we get. 

And every few months, leaders of India Inc chime in to advocate longer work hours in service of this hallowed goal. 

The most recent was the chief of L&T, who seemed to suggest that working 90 hours a week, including Sundays, would serve a national cause. 

This advocacy typically assumes that ‘someone else’ will do employees’ daily chores—running the home, shopping for groceries, cleaning, cooking, taking care of children and elders, packing lunch boxes for office-goers, and more. 

In urban India, a country where domestic labour remains cheap and weakly regulated, that someone else is likely to be a ‘maid,’ ‘cook’ or ‘help,’ usually a woman. 

Some weeks ago, X was alight with arguments after a techie suggested that young folks “get a maid" and gadgets to boost productivity and “increase your earning potential."

Also Read: 90-hour work week? No, it will not lead to higher productivity

There are many workers for whom 70-90-hour work weeks are routine—those who work in the informal sector without minimum-wage guarantees, defined contracts, fixed hours or social security protection.

Think of domestic workers, gardeners, watchmen and drivers. In India, a vast majority of workers work in the unorganized sector, where work conditions and their rights remain abysmal.

Domestic work, especially, is grossly underpaid.

News reports still surface with alarming regularity of the abuse, confinement and exploitation of such workers.

Most of them are poor migrants from disadvantaged communities and their dignity is often a non-issue for employers.

Also Read: We should be looking forward to a 90-hour work schedule—per month

As double-income households grow in urban India, their labour is in high demand. Yet, since household work has largely fallen to women and been unpaid for centuries, it remains undervalued.

Conversations abound on social media about fixing “rate cards" to ensure domestic workers don’t “exploit" residents of housing societies.

Presented as a collective bargain to save on household costs, this idea amounts to forming a worker-hiring cartel aimed at depressing the wages of those who lead hardscrabble lives. Unfortunately, such cases of bullying rarely reach antitrust authorities.

Regulation is a work in progress, with the Centre and states making moves but showing little determination to enforce minimum wages for domestic workers.

They may lack the means to secure their rights, but their interests deserve policy attention.

Not having a clear estimate of their number—estimates range from 2.5 million to 90 million—is just one challenge.

Homes being their place of work makes them doubly invisible. Not only are their needs often overlooked, other policy tools have not done much to support them.

They are covered by India’s 2013 law against sexual harassment at work and also an earlier enactment on minimum wages.

Moreover, the Unorganized Workers’ Social Security Act of 2008 extends them a safety net.

Some states have welfare boards for domestic workers. Yet, such legal provisions seem to have granted them little relief from dreadful work conditions.

Unless rule-making aligns earnestly with the will to enforce rules, this bleak scenario is likely to persist.

Also Read: Mint Explainer: When will we stop exploiting domestic workers?

Our safeguards are not strong enough and a power asymmetry often gets in the way of reporting violations. Ensuring dignity of labour for the people who keep homes running, however, is crucial to being a truly productive society.

 

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