Former Vice President and labor expert, Rafael Alburquerque says that the domestic help in the Dominican Republic technically is subject to the same labor laws as any other employee. He said the Dominican Republic is a signatory of the C189 – Domestic Workers Convention, 2011, of the International Labor Organization (ILO). He says the agreement was ratified by the President Danilo Medina in 2013 and published in the Gaceta Oficial, making it law immediately.
He says that for the convention stipulations to become law, the government needs just to reform the Labor Code. The convention orders that overtime, rest periods and paid vacations and permissions that are applicable to other employees, apply to all domestic help.
A report in Diario Libre explains that around 250,000 people work in household services, mostly women with low skills. Wages range from RD$3,000 to RD$13,000 a month, depending on nature and duration of the work. As reported, increasingly, less households employ live in help, and more of the fragmented kind, where staff comes a certain number of days a week. The same staff makes ends meet by home by holding jobs in different households.
The Labor Code at present makes it obligatory for employers to provide two weeks of annual vacation time and Christmas double wage. Pregnancy leave and severance payments are not part of the regular package.
In turn, the ILO convention domestic help establishes:
“Each member shall take measures towards ensuring equal treatment between domestic workers and workers generally in relation to normal hours of work, overtime compensation, periods of daily and weekly rest and paid annual leave in accordance with national laws, regulations or collective agreements, taking into account the special characteristics of domestic work.”
It also establishes: “Each member shall take measures to ensure that domestic workers enjoy minimum wage coverage, where such coverage exists, and that remuneration is established without discrimination based on sex.”
Regarding maternity, the convention establishes:
“Each member shall take appropriate measures, in accordance with national laws and regulations and with due regard for the specific characteristics of domestic work, to ensure that domestic workers enjoy conditions that are not less favorable than those applicable to workers generally in respect of social security protection, including with respect to maternity.
The measures referred to in the preceding paragraph may be applied progressively, in consultation with the most representative organizations of employers and workers and, where they exist, with organizations representative of domestic workers and those representative of employers of domestic workers.
A bill proposal prepared by the Inter-sectorial Gender Table calls for more regulation to domestic help, vacations, overtime, and a minimum wage, working hours.
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Diario Libre
Diario Libre
28 August 2018
