DOLE seeks support for domestic workers convention

After heading the International Labor Organization (ILO) committee on domestic workers in June this year, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is drumming up “multi-stakeholder support" for the ratification of the Domestic Workers’ Convention (ILO Convention 189). In a statement released on Tuesday, DOLE Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said the Philippines must ratify the convention which can protect Filipino household helpers around the world. “Generating this support is crucial in our efforts to enhance the policy environment toward the protection of our domestic workers," she said. Baldoz added that the country wants to ensure that all Filipino domestic workers “enjoy the same protection" that other Filipino workers have. The convention received the majority nod of the 183-member tripartite labor body, where each member-state is represented by two government delegates, and one employer and one worker delegate. Countries like the United States, Australia, and Brazil rallied behind the convention while only Swaziland opposed. Last week, Sen. Loren Legarda filed Resolution No. 615, which calls on the Aquino administration to ratify the Convention, “bearing in mind the legal and social benefits that would insure the protection for our local and overseas Filipino domestic workers." ‘Watershed event’ Convention No. 189, adopted on June 16 this year, is seen as a major breakthrough for persons who work inside other people’s households. In a New York Times article published on Saturday (US time), Nisha Varia said, “The treaty was a watershed event. There is now a global consensus that these women deserve the same rights as other workers. All the government involved in this conversation will be under pressure to examine their labor laws," Nisha Varia of the Human Rights Watch (HRW) said. For DOLE officials, the Domestic Workers’ Convention is “a major victory for Filipino domestic workers." Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) head Carlos Cao Jr. told the New York Times that the convention is “a landmark accomplishment," but acknowledged that “you don’t change cultures overnight." The convention, which said “domestic work continues to be undervalued and invisible," provides household workers with the same basic labor rights as others, such as: