During a recent conference, entitled "Exploited, Undervalued and Essential," hosted by the University of Western Cape’s Social Law Project, academics and experts made recommendations for ways to improve conditions of work for domestic workers, such as local and municipal administration of regulations to facilitate monitoring and collective bargaining and tax incentives for employers to register employees with the Unemployment Insurance Fund.

The advocacy and mobilization on domestic worker issues is not new in South Africa, however the conference contributed to recent ongoing research and consultation related to the drafting of a proposed ILO instrument on Decent Work for Domestic Workers that many labor organizations and some governments hopes to have adopted by 2011.

Likewise General Secretary of the Home-Based Women Workers Federation of Pakistan, Zehra Bano, spoke out against the unfair treatment that many home based garment workers, bracelet craftsmen and soccer ball stitchers in Pakistan face.  Although such workers use their homes as a factory, they are not paid for the additional electricity or other costs that arise from using their homes for work. As informal workers, these women are prohibited from forming unions and filing court cases since they are not recognized as workers by law. Such status prevents home based workers from receiving the fair living wages, health benefits and job security that come with being a registered worker.

By Vanessa León, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum

Harassment: sometimes sexual, other times verbal, often times both.
Attempts to organize unions result in termination of employment.
Pregnancy tests or proof of sterilization as a condition for hiring.
Pesticides and fungicides causing respiratory and eye problems, skin rashes and miscarriages.
Years of faithful, grueling work only to be denied basic worker's rights. Basic human rights.

By: Garat Ibrahim

The following is a post from the Imagine 2050 a
group of activists, immigrants, artists and students who are invested
in a future nation that embraces multiculturalism and tolerance.  

It is very difficult to have a good understanding of the hands that feed us every day and the harsh reality that workers undergo daily in the meat packing industry. These are some of the hardest jobs in the food industry and most dangerous in any industry. So it falls to the newest immigrants, refugees and people of color in general to fill these jobs and bear the burden of their risks.