Domestic workers: the struggle continues 

In 1974, Clotil Walcott, along with James Lynch, Salisha Ali and others, established the National Union of Domestic Employees (NUDE) as a section of the Union of Ship Builders, Ship Repairers and Allied Workers Union (USSR). The bulletin announcing its formation stated: 

"Calling all persons serving in the capacity of cooks, kitchen helpers, maids, butlers, seamstresses, laundresses, barmen, babysitters, chauffeurs, messengers, yardmen and household assistants" 

thus heralding the union's concern with low-income workers more generally in addition to domestic workers.

Amongst the successes of the Union's campaigns over the years has been the establishment of the Minimum Wages (Household Assistants) Order in 1982, which set out key benefits for workers covered by the Order, including

• Minimum remuneration

• Minimum remuneration for overtime

• Hours of work

• Days off

• Vacation leave

• Sick leave

•  Maternity leave

• Duties to be set out.

In 2015, NUDE also successfully got the Government, through the Ministry of Labour, to establish a Domestic Workers Register.

In an imaginative initiative, NUDE was instrumental in establishing the Service Workers Centre Cooperative Society (SWCC) so that domestic workers could have more control over how they sell their labour.

A major campaigning target for NUDE remains amending the Industrial Relations Act (IRA). Since 1972, the IRA has specifically and deliberately excluded anyone who is “employed in any capacity of a domestic nature, including that of a chauffeur, gardener or handyman in or about a private dwelling house and paid by the householder” from being legally defined as a worker.

The effect of this is to deny any worker falling within this description the right to take their dismissal to the Industrial Court.

A major success of the international domestic worker’s struggle was the International Labour Organization passing the Domestic Workers Convention (C189) in 2011.  When a country ratifies this Convention, it obliges them “in relation to domestic workers, take the measures set out in this Convention to respect, promote and realize the fundamental principles and rights at work, namely:

• (a) freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;

• (b) the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour;

• (c) the effective abolition of child labour; and

• (d) the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.”

Has Trinidad and Tobago ratified this Convention? No, it has not. This leaves T&T lagging behind its neighbours in the Caribbean who have ratified the convention, namely:

• Antigua and Barbuda

• Barbados

• The Dominican Republic

• Grenada

• Guyana and

• Jamaica.

The class interests of those in society resisting giving domestic workers their legal rights know who they are … and so do we!