Health and safety in paid domestic work: what does the COVID 19 pandemic reveal?

Abstract

Reproductive labor, whether paid or unpaid, is gradually occupying different places of interest in research, not only in Brazil but worldwide. Brazil, specifically, has had a historical delay in acknowledging and regulating such work as an occupation, which occurred only in 2013 with the 72nd Amendment to the Constitution and in 2015 with Complementary Law 150, after decades of struggle by these workers. This delay also reverberates in the near absence of discussion about the occupational health and safety of this profession. The purpose of this essay is to reflect on the vulnerability of occupational health of paid domestic workers in the Brazilian context and on discussions about the “indispensability” of such work during the COVID 19 pandemic. Support for these reflections is based on theories of the sexual division of labor in the context of reproductive labor, specifically paid domestic work. We consider the socio-historical-cultural conditions of domestic workers, which concentrate structural elements of an exclusionary society with disparate social inequalities: racism, gender, class, and education. There is an urgent need to standardize these aspects both from a technical point of view, such as through surveys of risks, provision of collective and personal protective equipment, establishment of causal links, and reporting of occupational accidents; and from the standpoint of socio-historical-cultural hazards that involve the profession. We conclude by discussing challenges faced in addressing the deep, harmful scars that exist in our society.