In the Dominican Republic, a large percentage of middle-income households employs domestic help. The maids make it possible for hundreds of thousands of women to work outside the home. Soon having household help may become a luxury as in the rest of the world.
The Ministry of Labor is considering new rules that would make severance payments mandatory for domestic workers. So far, only when a company is the owner of the property where the domestic help works is the severance payment enforced, with some exceptions. But the new rules would require that households operate under most of the same labor rules that govern businesses today. The requirement will considerably add to the cost of hiring domestic help.
The wages paid for domestic help are negotiated between the housekeeper and the employee in the Dominican Republic. The new rules would instate a minimum wage.
The labor code does not award maternity leave to domestic help, and workers can be fired for getting pregnant with no benefits. The new rules order the same benefits as companies award their employees.
The Ministry of Labor is considering a resolution that would also oblige the domestic workers to be included in the Social Security (TSS), a vacation plan that increases with the number of years the person is employed, maximum eight-hour work shifts, and a minimum wage yet to be determined. At present the Labor Code has flexible conditions for those employed in domestic labor. Thousands of domestic workers receive health benefits of the free government-subsidized Senasa health plan.
The Ministry of Labor estimates that around 240,000 Dominican women are employed as domestic helpers, and another 20,000 men.
As reported in Diario Libre, Victoria García, president of the Association of Household Workers (ATH), is against the public hearing. She says that what the Ministry of Labor should have done is implement what the Dominican government already approved in 2015 — the Convention 189 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), which has the status of law.
Households could still have the option to hire from a domestic help agency and pay the company not the employee, to get around the severance payment requirement. The intermediary would increase the cost of household help. Diario Libre reports that if the dispositions become law, there will be a decline in employment for the household helpers.
Benjamin Morales, managing editor of Diario Libre, writes in an editorial today: “The Ministry of Labor is promoting a measure that seeks to do justice to domestic work, an initiative that is almost impossible to criticize, but which, in the long run, could end up doing more harm than good.” He stresses the point the TSS requirement would put the burden of the fulfillment on the employer. He speculates this would result in the firing of many of those that are employed as domestic helpers.
Meanwhile, senator Antonio Marte (Santiago Rodriguez- Fuerza del Pueblo) says: “Those who can’t afford domestic help, should not have the help.”
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Diario Libre
Noticias SIN
Noticias SIN
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
Noticias SIN
Diario Libre
31 March 2022