Making History through Policy: A Field Report on the International Domestic Workers Movement

Abstract

AbstractPaid household labor has fertilized the development of national economies, while also nourishing the capitalist labor systems that has allowed globalization to thrive. However, this transnational sector has remained historically invisible, devalued, and unprotected from national and international legislative frameworks. In 2010, the International Labor Organization (ILO) finally embraced this challenge through two years of negotiations on the world's first international convention to assure “Decent Work for Domestic Workers.” These tripartite debates set the stage for the largest inclusion of “actual workers” in policy making. The debates also mobilized the world's first international domestic workers’ movement. This report from the field highlights a distinct process whereby workers themselves played a pivotal role in the creation of international labor policy. According to International Domestic Workers Federation president Myrtle Witbooi, this “new beginning” set “a benchmark for decent work and social equality.”