Your maid will soon be entitled to weekly offs, leave

NAGPUR: After 20 years of struggle, domestic workers — your maid servants, cooks and general handypersons — have achieved their goal: getting legal recognition as workers, which will entitle them to most of the benefits of normal employees in a few months from now.

The Domestic Workers’ Welfare Board Bill was passed by both houses of the Maharashtra legislature during its just-concluded Nagpur session. The bill will entitle your bai to several financial and welfare benefits, but the exact benefits will be decided by the district-wise welfare boards to be set up in due course.

The main organisations involved in getting domestic workers their due have, among other things, asked for benefits like weekly offs, annual paid and sick leave, and Diwali bonuses. The final list of benefits employers will have to provide domestic help will be decided by various welfare boards constituted for this purpose.

What is not clear is who will pay for what: while the monthly pay will obviously come from your pocket as an employer, the welfare benefits — like provident fund, social security, health insurance and education funding — may have to come from the government’s coffers. As an employer, you will have to do the housework yourself during weekly offdays and annual leave days, or employ a temporary hand.

“It’s a major victory for us and the first step towards organising domestic workers,” said Dr Rupa Kulkarni, convenor of the Vidarbha Molkarin Sanghatna. A well-known Ambedkar scholar, Dr Kulkarni, who retired as head of Nagpur University’s Sanskrit department, has been instrumental in spearheading the movement for over two decades. The law, she said, would provide much-needed protection to them.

There are an estimated 500,000 domestic workers, mainly women, in Mumbai alone, and over a million across the state, according to government estimates. Voluntary bodies estimate their numbers to be much larger.

The Mumbai-based Gharkam Molkarin Sanghatana has demanded a separate board to deal with domestic workers’ problems and social security. Says Prakash Reddy, an official of the union: “We want legal status for domestic workers. They should be registered with the board and get identity cards. The workers should be entitled to PF, gratuity, pension, insurance cover and weekly offs. They should also get offs on festival days and national holidays. Their children should get scholarships for education. Minimum wages should also be fixed,” he said.  

“Currently, domestic workers earn between Rs250-750 per household. They work at a minimum of five houses daily. Our fight is not against employers. We want protection for domestic workers from the government,” Reddy said.

The Maharashtra bill, which is in line with the central government’s bill for providing social security to unorganised sector workers, seeks to constitute district-wise welfare boards, with equal representation from the government, non-governmental organisations, workers and employers.

Any domestic worker registered with such a board will have access to welfare funds, grants and other contingency measures announced by the government.

Each board will issue identity cards to registered workers. A state-level advisory committee will mentor the boards from time to time to overcome any unforeseen problems in the implementation of the provisions of the Act.

The Vidarbha Molkarin Sanghatna has planned a grand victory rally in Nagpur on January 5 to hail the enactment of the legislation and inform its members about the road-map for implementing its provisions.
(Additional reporting by Kiran Tare)