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Context:
- There is an urgent need to modify landmark labour laws to bring domestic work under the purview of state regulation.
Explanation:
- Domestic workers are among the most exploited sections of the Indian workforce.
- The NSSO data of 2004-05, for example, has recorded 47 lakh domestic workers in India; the majority of whom, i.e. 30 lakh, were women.
- As of today, a large number of these workers are inter-State migrant labourers from impoverished districts in West Bengal, Assam and Jharkhand.
- The employer-dominated, domestic work industry is characterised by low, stagnant wage rates.
- Wages are particularly low for Bengali and Adivasi workers.
- Many women slaving away at such low wage rates are subsequently compelled to seek employment in more than one house, and to make their teenage daughters pick up similar work.
- Irregular payment of wages by employers, extraction of more work than agreed upon at the start of employment, and the practice of arbitrarily reducing wages are rampant problems that breed overexploitation of domestic workers.
Conclusion:
- Such vulnerability and over-exploitation cannot be ignored any further, especially with the continuous growth in the number of impoverished women and children entering the domestic services industry in the post-liberalisation era.
