LABOUR-BRAZIL: May Day No Holiday for Domestic Employees

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 27 2001 (IPS) - “We don’t have anything to celebrate on May 1, International Labour Day, because we will all be working that day, and the notion of an eight-hour shift is still a distant dream for most of us,” is the lament of domestic workers across Brazil, the vast majority of whom are women.

The sector involves some five million workers, who also lack the chance to celebrate April 27, Brazil’s National Day, complained Nair Castro Lima, 63, former president of the domestic workers’ syndicate of Rio de Janeiro.

This branch of the workforce has little in the way of labour legislation to protect the employees, according to the Institute of Applied Economic Research, a division of the Ministry of Planning.

At least 800,000 girls and adolescents, ages 10 to 17, are already working in the homes of people outside their own families, though it is illegal in Brazil to employ children under age 15. Millions of children are engaged in paid activities in this country, and in many cases work in alarming conditions, such as those entailed in charcoal production.

The circumstances in which domestic employees work often seem to be a remnant of the slavery, which in Brazil was formally abolished in 1888. The majority are Afro-Brazilian women, they are given tiny quarters in the employer’s home, have few legal rights and no regular work schedule.

“I began working at age nine. I was a child taking care of two other children, ages five and six,” recalls Castro Lima. “Today am an old lady who takes care of other old ladies,” she said – her way of explaining that she now works as a “companion” for an 89-year-old woman.

Castro Lima is officially retired, but she is forced to continue working. “If I didn’t, I would die of hunger,” because her monthly retirement pension is a scant 198 ‘reais’ (90 dollars). She also works as a volunteer, “listening to the complaints of colleagues,” at the syndicate’s legal service.

Her union activities led to a great joy in 1995, when she was chosen to participate in the World Conference on Women, organised by the United Nations in Beijing, China. Castro Lima served as secretary of Human Rights for the Latin American Confederation of Domestic Workers.

“It was a dream trip, 25 days in Beijing, Shanghai and Taiwan, and one day in Japan,” she said.

Her union obtained official recognition 13 years ago, following the ratification of Brazil’s 1988 Constitution. For nearly 30 years, it had existed as an association because it could not legally operate as a union organisation. “Peculiarities of Brazil,” comments Castro Lima.

But the movement to organise domestic workers ultimately spread throughout the entire country. Since 1997 they have had a National Federation, which this Friday through Sunday is holding its second congress, in Belo Horizonte, capital of Minas Gerais state.

In the last 10 or 15 years, “social acceptance (of domestic workers) has improved, there are fewer prejudices,” says Ednede Nascimentos dos Santos, the second secretary of the Rio de Janeiro syndicate and one of the approximately 120 delegates taking part in the Belo Horizonte Congress.

“Today we are no longer considered incapable, the shops accept us as consumers,” and racism has diminished as well, comments Dos Santos, 42, an Afro-Brazilian unionist who has worked as a “domestic” since age 16.

But the improvements achieved were “only 10 percent of what we wanted,” she points out. Over the last decade or so, domestic employees have won a small raise in wages and are now a bit closer “to being workers like everyone else,” she said.

Job insecurity plagues the women because unemployment in the sector jumps when the income of the middle class – the largest employer of domestic workers – begins to shrink.

These women “have nothing to celebrate” on May 1, says Dos Santos. “I will be working that day, just like the immense majority of my colleagues,” who do not enjoy most of the rights conquered by the Brazilian labour movement.

The Security Fund, for example, has benefited workers with legal contracts since the 1960s by providing a reserve for the future through a deposit of eight-percent of their wages.

It was not until last year that the government approved extending the Security Fund to domestic workers, but the women’s employers are not obligated to pay into it.

Other rights, such as health services, vacations and bonuses are not fully assured for domestic workers, and rarely exist for those who work on a day-to-day basis, generally without any sort of contract or guarantee.

These workers tend to have similar histories. Castro Lima came from Manhao, a state in the Brazilian northeast, the country’s poorest region. She arrived in Rio de Janeiro with her parents, who sought a better future in this coastal city.

Dos Santos, meanwhile, arrived from the state of Espiritu Santo, Rio de Janeiro state’s northern neighbour, when she was 15. At 16, she went to work, and today has her own house, though she still has to spend Monday through Saturday at the home of her employers.

“We have a set hour to begin work, very early,” but not a set hour to finish the day, so the shift can last anywhere from eight to 16 hours, she said.