Matters India Reporter
New Delhi: Around 10,000 domestic workers from all over India descended on the national capital on August 2 to seek a comprehensive legislation for them and the withdrawal of new labor codes.
They marched from Mandi House Metro Station to the Parliament Street, some 3 km away, in hot and humid weather shouting slogans demanding respect and dignity for their work.
“The gathering of domestic workers was huge, bordering 10,000,” claimed Montfort Brother Varghese Theckanath, one of the organizers. They collected 100,000 signatures and presented them to the office of the prime minister and labor minister.
Sitaram Yechuri, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), flagged off the rally that passed through some busy streets of New Delhi.
Many members of parliaments addressed the gathering. Rahul Gandhi, president of the Congress party, “did not appear in spite of the promise yesterday. His office called to apologize,” Brother Theckanath said.
He said they had two demands — enact a comprehensive legislation to protect rights of domestic workers and withdraw labor codes that take away the rights of workers in favor of the corporate sector.
The domestic workers in India have demanded a legislation to protect their rights since the Government of India voted the International Labor Organization Convention 189, explained the National Platform for Domestic Workers, the umbrella body of 36 trade unions that are pushing for a comprehensive leglsation for domestic works.
According to the Indian Census of 2011, the country has 6.4 million, but the rally organizers claimed that the number could be around 90 million.
“While paid domestic work was once a male dominated occupation in pre-Independence India, today women constitute 71 percent of this sector,” they explained.
Domestic work is the largest female occupation in urban India. However, the domestic work is not treated as “real” and it remains largely invisible because the work takes place within the home.
The Delhi rallyists carried banners and placards that declared: “Don’t insult domestic workers, if you cannot respect them,” “We are workers, not culprits, why the probe then?” “Domestic workers are workers not slaves” among others.
They also shouted slogans asking the government to come to senses and heed to their demands of justice.
They see the new labor codes as an attempt to make business easier while withdrawing all former gains of the labor movement.
The platform also pointed out that 93 percent workers in India fall into the informal sector and contribute the Gross Domestic Product. Hence these codes should protect workers and their rights instead of treating them as beneficiaries of welfare, it asserted.