ANDWU joins chorus in demanding nation-wide legislation for protection against exploitation to domestic workers
Morung Express News
Dimapur | July 27
The demand for a nation-wide legislation that would endow legal sanction and protection against exploitation to domestic workers continues. In Nagaland, the call to recognise domestic work as a professional occupation and the government registering the All Nagaland Domestic Workers Union (ANDWU) as a trade union is growing louder, while the state government remain largely apathetic to the demand.
Formed in 2008, the ANDWU today has 1650 members, who have joined a long-drawn nation-wide yet largely ignored campaign by workers of the unorganised sector seeking equal rights as any other professional workers. The ANDWU, besides calling for legislation to secure the welfare of domestic workers has termed the proposed Labour Code reform as a threat to the rights of workers in the unorganised sector.
In the lead up to the August 2 rally in Delhi called by the National Platform for Domestic Workers and Central Trade Unions, the ANDWU has called for public support to draw the attention of the Central government as well as the state government to its predicament.
ANDWU’s legal advisor, T. Limanochet Jamir at a press conference today asserted that the proposed Labour Code, if affected, would further marginalise the unorganised sector, including a large unaccounted number of domestic workers across the country. “The issue of domestic workers should be treated as a public concern. Give them the dignity they deserve,” said Jamir.
The absence of legislation has resulted in exploitation (financial as well as sexual) of countless workers, mostly women employed as household helps, in return for minuscule remuneration. The ANDWU’s demands also include the incorporation of domestic work in the Employment Schedule, introducing fixed minimum wages for this section of workers and importantly, security.
Nagaland State Coordinator, National Domestic Workers Movement, Sister Pramila Lobo maintained that the workers from the organised and unorganised sector should be treated as separate entities. While calling for “attitudinal change” towards domestic workers, she said, “We firmly believe that the workers in the unorganised sector require a different kind of treatment. This calls for a comprehensive legislation for the unorganised sector.”
