The 100th an­nu­al Con­fer­ence of the In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­gan­i­sa­tion (ILO) on Thurs­day adopt­ed the Con­ven­tion on Do­mes­tic Work­ers (2011) by a vote of 396 to 16, with 63 ab­sten­tions and the ac­com­pa­ny­ing rec­om­men­da­tion by a vote of 434 to 8, with 42 ab­sten­tions. The con­ven­tion is an in­ter­na­tion­al treaty that is bind­ing on mem­ber states that rat­i­fy it, while the rec­om­men­da­tion pro­vides more de­tailed guid­ance on how to ap­ply the con­ven­tion. Ida Le Blanc, gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Na­tion­al Union of Do­mes­tic Em­ploy­ees (NUDE), who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the vote on the con­ven­tion, was for years a lead­ing mem­ber of the in­ter­na­tion­al cam­paign to have le­gal re­stric­tions which pre­vents do­mes­tic work­ers be­ing treat­ed like oth­er work­ers, re­moved. "We have won an ILO con­ven­tion and a rec­om­men­da­tion for do­mes­tic work­ers," Le Blanc said.

"The vot­ing was ex­cel­lent...The Trinidad and To­ba­go del­e­ga­tion all vot­ed for in favour of the con­ven­tion and rec­om­men­da­tion. "This is a his­toric mo­ment for us and more than 100 mil­lion do­mes­tic work­ers of the world (90 per cent of which are women and many who are mi­grants). "We have to now call for rat­i­fi­ca­tion and for the in­stru­ment to be im­ple­ment­ed by our dif­fer­ent coun­tries. "The adop­tion of the con­ven­tion is loud­ly stat­ing that do­mes­tic work­ers are not ser­vants any­more, but work­ers with rights like any oth­er work­er. "That is what Clotil Wal­cott sought to do...She had a vi­sion for the do­mes­tic work­ers.

"Do­mes­tic work­ers are a rep­re­sen­ta­tive sec­tor of the glob­al econ­o­my, de­serv­ing full labour and so­cial pro­tec­tions.

"Do­mes­tic work­ers care for the most valu­able as­pects of their em­ploy­ers' lives. "We are very glad the con­ven­tion pro­tects the rights of mi­grant do­mes­tic work­ers and pro­hibits child do­mes­tic labour. "We are proud that by or­gan­is­ing our­selves, we have been able to be one of the few groups of work­er to sit at the ta­ble and ne­go­ti­ate our con­ven­tion...More than 70 do­mes­tic work­ers from all con­ti­nents were at the Con­fer­ence."

Ac­cord­ing to the Web site of the ILO:

"The new ILO stan­dards set out that do­mes­tic work­ers around the world who care for fam­i­lies and house­holds, must have the same ba­sic labour rights as those avail­able to oth­er work­ers: rea­son­able hours of work, week­ly rest of at least 24 con­sec­u­tive hours, a lim­it on in-kind pay­ment, clear in­for­ma­tion on terms and con­di­tions of em­ploy­ment, as well as re­spect for fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples and rights at work, in­clud­ing free­dom of as­so­ci­a­tion and the right to col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing. "Re­cent ILO es­ti­mates based on na­tion­al sur­veys and/or cen­sus­es of 117 coun­tries, place the num­ber of do­mes­tic work­ers at around 53 mil­lion.

"How­ev­er, ex­perts say that due to the fact that this kind of work is of­ten hid­den and un­reg­is­tered, the to­tal num­ber of do­mes­tic work­ers could be as high as 100 mil­lion. "In de­vel­op­ing coun­tries, they make up at least 4 to 12 per cent of wage em­ploy­ment... Around 83 per cent of these work­ers are women or girls and many are mi­grant work­ers." The con­ven­tion de­fines do­mes­tic work as work per­formed in or for a house­hold or house­holds. While the new in­stru­ments cov­er all do­mes­tic work­ers, they pro­vide for spe­cial mea­sures to pro­tect those work­ers who, be­cause of their young age or na­tion­al­i­ty or live-in sta­tus, may be ex­posed to ad­di­tion­al risks rel­a­tive to their peers, among oth­ers.

Ac­cord­ing to ILO pro­ceed­ings, the new con­ven­tion will come in­to force af­ter two coun­tries have rat­i­fied it.

In its in­tro­duc­to­ry text, the new con­ven­tion says that "do­mes­tic work con­tin­ues to be un­der­val­ued and in­vis­i­ble and is main­ly car­ried out by women and girls, many of whom are mi­grants or mem­bers of dis­ad­van­taged com­mu­ni­ties and who are par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble to dis­crim­i­na­tion in re­spect of con­di­tions of em­ploy­ment and work, and to oth­er abus­es of hu­man rights."