Investing in Decent Work for Domestic Workers

Your Toolkit on ILO Convention 189

The "Investing in Decent Work for Domestic Workers, Ratification and Implementation of C189 and C190" workshop will take place in October 2022 in Jamaica. It will be hosted by the Jamaica Household Workers Union(JHWU), an IDWF affiliate in Jamaica, alongside WIEGO and the IDWF, as well as domestic worker representatives of eight countries from the Caribbean region.

The workshop will launch on October 7th, commemorating World Day of Decent Work alongside government officials from the Minister's Office, Ministry of Labour and the Bureau of Women's Affairs in Jamaica.  

After this event, domestic worker representatives will start a four-day workshop with the aim to build capacity within domestic worker organizations in the Caribbean, where there is an urgent need for capacity-building around the ILO Convention 189 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers and Convention 190 on Violence and Harassment in the World of Work.

Objectives

• Get to know each other and our organizations better across the Caribbean region
• Identify our common problems as domestic workers
• Increase our knowledge and understanding of International Labour Organization (ILO) standards on domestic work (Convention 189 and Recommendation 201) and identify gaps in our national laws when compared with the provisions of Convention189
• Identify gaps between the existing national laws and the reality of what is implemented by our governments and employers
• Develop ideas on how we can use the rights in Convention 189 to
  • Build and strengthen our organizations by educating our members on their rights
  • Make demands to our national governments to ratify Convention 189 and to bring the laws covering domestic workers in line with the Convention
  • Make demands to our national governments to make the laws that already exist a reality by implementing them
• Familiarize ourselves with the draft Toolkit on C189 so we can make the best use of it in our countries as well as provide feedback to WIEGO on any suggested changes to the Toolkit
• Have a brief introduction to Convention 190 on violence and harassment at work
• Agree on ways that we can keep in contact with each other for the purpose of building solidarity across the Caribbean region and internationally

Legal Toolkit for Domestic Workers

A highlight of the workshop is testing the Domestic Workers Legal Toolkit that WIEGO and IDWF developed in 2018. Based on research and best practices, the toolkit can equip domestic workers and their organizations as they struggle for ratification and implementation of C189. It includes the following tools:

1. A summary of C189 and accompanying Recommendation 201 for Organizers
2. A pamphlet of practical issues that C189 addresses
3. A checklist of issues 
4. A model employment contract, timesheet and pay slip for domestic workers
5. Posters for awareness-raising

More information

• Your Toolkit on ILO Convention 189 – The Domestic Workers' Convention, WIEGO 2018. Download here
• Florence Bonnet, Françoise Carré and Joann Vanek, 2022. Domestic Workers in the World: A Statistical Profile. Read here
• WIEGO and IDWF, 2021. Ten Years Since Winning C189: Domestic Workers Become an Unstoppable Movement. Read here
• Castaño, Pablo. 2018. Laws, Legitimacy and Ongoing Struggle: Lessons from Bolivian Policies on Domestic Workers' Rights. WIEGO Policy Brief (Urban Policies) No. 17. Read here
• Pamhidzai H. Bamu-Chipunza. 2018. Promoting Decent Work for Domestic Workers: Lessons From Five Countries. WIEGO Resource Document No. 8. Read here
• WIEGO. 2021. Community Paralegals as a Tool to Foster Domestic Workers' Legal Empowerment and Access to Justice. Read here