Policy resources and tools
Making decent work a reality for domestic workers
Improving conditions in the domestic work sector is often perceived as unattainable: how can employers afford to pay domestic workers the minimum wage, let alone social security benefits? How can conditions be monitored if labour inspectors are prohibited from entering the private household? Yet increasingly unions, governments and employers are taking measures to make labour and social protections a reality for domestic workers. The following resources share the lessons learned from their experiences.
Find out what, where, and how it has been done:FORMALIZATION
COOPERATIVES
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES & RIGHTS AT WORK
WAGES
- Remuneration in domestic work, Policy Brief
- The Long Journey Home: The Contested Exclusion and Inclusion of Domestic Workers from Federal Wage and Hour Protection in the United States, Working Paper
- Minimum wage setting practices in domestic work: an inter-state analysis of India, Working Paper
- Domestic work, wages, and gender equality: lessons from developing countries, Working Paper
- How to set the minimum wage for domestic workers, Guide
WORKING TIME
- Working hours in domestic work, Policy Brief
- Working time of live-in domestic workers, Policy Brief
- The right to rest for domestic workers – setting a floor, Brief
- The legal regulation of working time in domestic work, Working Paper
- Working around the clock? A manual for trainers to help live-in domestic workers count their working time, Guide
- The Right to Rest for domestic workers, Infographic
SOCIAL & LABOUR PROTECTION
- Effective protection for domestic workers: a guide to designing labour laws
- Extension of social protection of migrant domestic workers in Europe, Brochure
- “Meeting the needs of my family too”: maternity protection and work-family measures for domestic workers, Policy Brief
- Social protection for domestic workers: Key policy trends and statistics, Working Paper
ORGANIZING & COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
- Decent work for domestic workers in Asia and the Pacific: Manual for trainers
- Achieving decent work for domestic workers: an organizer’s manual to promote ILO Convention No. 189 and build domestic workers’ power, Manual
- Domestic workers organize – but can they bargain?, Brief
- Domestic work voice and representation through organizing, Policy Brief
- Improving Working Conditions for Domestic Workers: Organizing, Coordinated Action and Bargaining, Issue Brief
LABOUR INSPECTION
- Labour inspection in domestic work, Training Module
- Labour inspection and other compliance mechanisms in the domestic work sector, Introductory Guide
MIGRANT DOMESTIC WORKERS
- Decent work for migrant domestic workers: Moving the agenda forward, Report
- ILO global estimates on migrant workers
- Making decent work a reality for migrant domestic workers, Policy Brief
- Regional Model Competency Standards: Domestic work, Book
- No easy exit – Migration bans affecting women from Nepal, Report
- Promover la integración de las trabajadoras y los trabajadores domésticos migrantes en España, International Migration Paper
- Promoting integration for migrant domestic workers in Italy, International Migration Paper
- Promoting integration for migrant domestic workers in Belgium, International Migration Paper
- Promouvoir l’intégration des travailleuses et travailleurs domestiques migrants en France, International Migration Paper
- Promoting integration for migrant domestic workers in Europe: a synthesis of Belgium, France, Italy and Spain, International Migration Paper
FORMALIZATION
- Formalizing domestic work, Policy Brief
- Formalizing domestic work, Report
- Formalizing domestic work through the use of service vouchers - the particular cases of France, Belgium and the canton of Geneva
- Políticas de formalización del trabajo doméstico remunerado en América Latina y El Caribe
COOPERATIVES
- Cooperating out of Isolation: The Case of Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon, Jordan and Kuwait, Working Paper
- Cooperating out of Isolation: Domestic Workers’ cooperatives, Brief