Slave Labour

I like to read Paul Windsor's blog. He is known for his great preaching, and he is currently principal at Carey Baptist College in Auckland, NZ. His blog contains musings on life, critiques of New Zealand society - both secular and Christian, and some info about what's going on at Carey.

A while ago, I read this entry, about contemporary slavery, which mentioned Philippine Domestic Workers as one group of modern day slaves. At the time, I was surprised and almost offended, as we have domestic workers in our house, and they are certainly not slaves. Although I admitted that as westerners, we probably paid our helpers more than the local going rate, I thought the term 'slavery' was a bit rich.

I was wrong.

Abuse of domestic workers is rife here, and I don't have to look far to find it.

When we arrived, our helper (Jenalyn) had been chosen for us by the school, and we were free to draw up our own working contract with her after a recommended probation period. All her papers were in order - we had copies of her birth certificate (why did we need that?), her graduation from high school, references from former employers, and her personal information. I didn't take much of that seriously, we just figured out early on that we loved her, and we negotiated a good contract. We took advice from the school about what a good salary should be, and she asked for weekends off. Both parties have been very happy since then - she's still now an integral part of our Philippine household.

Since then, I've learned:
1) Jenalyn's last job allowed her one day off per month. The rest of the time, she was required to be "on call" in the house, day and night, for the children in her care. When we first heard about this, we were shocked. But I now know this is not uncommon, especially for nannies. The justification is that the children in the house 'need' their nannies every day, so even the one day a month is hard "for the children".

2) Many contracts include food and toiletries in the remuneration packages for household staff. I wondered why this should be. Jenalyn asked about food - we decided to give her a food allowance rather than buying food for her, and I told her she could buy her own toiletries. I now know the reason for the inclusion of these things. Many workers are simply not allowed out of the house! So they need their food and toiletries brought in. Even Jenalyn's former one monthly free day rendered her position as a job with freedom.

3) Further proof of this - when we employed Myrna as a second helper (common in a large house like ours) we were rung up by the village guard house the first time Myrna left the village. They had stopper her in her tracks, asked her for ID, where she had come from, and rang us up. Were we allowing Myrna to leave the house? Was she allowed out of the village? Were we sure? I was incredulous. What was the big deal? I thought perhaps it was because she didn't yet have a village ID. All domestic staff (but not residents) are required to wear their official IDs when out of the house. But we soon learned that even if a domestic worker has an ID, they have very strict 'rules of conduct'. They are only allowed in certian areas. They have a curfew. We have to provide "gate passes" for them between certain hours. Every time we forget a gate pass, we get rung up.

4) Many families don't trust their helpers. Of course there are stories about theft which get spread around. I take it as a reminder to 'use my common sense', but others use it as an excuse to demean their staff. On our official "gate passes" is a place for me to write down all of the belongings that my domestic helper is taking out. If I chose to, I can go through their handbag, and itemise every single thing, even the money in their wallet, and put it on the paper so that the guard can then also do the same ten minutes later. It sounds ridiculous, but I have friends who look through their helpers' hand bags every single morning when they arrive, and every single evening when they leave. My thought is - if you don't trust a person, don't hire them! Their thought is - No one can be trusted!

5) The issue of wages is a tricky one. Minimum wage here is about $10 per day. We like to pay a little more than that. It's still hard for us, though, to get our heads around the fact that labour here is just incredibly cheap. Discussions about how much one should pay one's helpers abound in expat circles. I have friends who pay more, and I have friends who pay less. Some considerably less. I've since found out also, that domestic workers are exempt from minimum wage requirements. In other words, it is perfectly legal to pay a domestic worker almost nothing. The justification? You are already providing lodging, electricity, water, food and toiletries. They don't need anything else.

So is it slave labour? In our case, it's not. Our two yayas are very happy working with us. Both of them have shed tears with me when we said we might be leaving the Philippines. Myrna has started an application to work in the USA with a family she knows (it's a huge dream here to get a job overseas), but when she heard that there was a slim possibility of us staying, she said she would cancel her application. She would rather stay here with us, than take an opportunity to work in the States. On our side, we feel they are part of our family, and I also count them as friends.

In many families, the situation is similar. One Filipina friend of mine has the same yaya for her boys that was her own yaya growing up. But unfortunately, for many domestic workers, life is not so happy.

Modern-day slavery is alive and well.

Paul was right.