Objective

1. ITCILO COURSE A-1055170Trade Union on Promoting and Defending the Rights of Domestic Workers10 to 14 December 2012TMLC, Kisumu, KenyaOrganising Domestic Workers into Trade Unions

2. Objective Aims: • To improve the visibility and status of the domestic workers through increased organisation and their effective representation by trade unions. • To achieve rights at work for domestic workers in law and practice, including the: - rights to organise, - right to represent, - right to negotiate and of their voices to be heard through collective power - right for decent income, working conditions, social protection & social dialogue

3. Objective • Achieve collective trade union protection for domestic workers • Create conditions for the empowerment of domestic workers through knowledge development, management and dissemination • Reinforced unity and solidarity among domestic workers and between them and other workers, including those within the formal economy

4. Opportunities • Strategy for: - Rebuilding the trade union movement - Increasing the membership and strength of the trade union movement - Enhancing unity and solidarity of workers - Improving the financial position of the trade union movement - Extending union protection to domestic workers, including women workers who constitute the majority of workers in this sector - Curbing child labour, forced labour & discrimination

5. “Combining our Efforts” Building a Movement Domestic Worker Organisations Trade Unions SupportOrganisations Social Movements and other organizations Women’s and Social Movements , NGOs etc.

6. Challenges • Solidarity and collective action is not always a natural tendency among domestic workers • Many domestic workers perceive their work as an extension of family duties and lack a sense of a worker identity • Labour laws often encompasses only workers in clearly defined employment relationships – not informal contractual relationships • Domestic workers work in private households which are in essence scattered and individualized workplaces

7. Challenges • Trade unions have enough on their hands, let alone free up resources to devote to hard-to-organise workers in the domestic labour sector. • Most domestic workers face extreme poverty – their ability to pay regular union dues is severely restricted and may be erratic and vulnerable to external shocks. • Also, organisng workers in the domestic labour sector is often seen as a drain on union resources.

8. Innovative Organising Strategies • Demand the ratification and implementation of ILS concerning FoA, CB & Domestic Workers. • Ensure that rights at work is applicable to all categories of workers. • Promote FoA and CB – actions should be extended to areas such as trade, investment and procurement • Undertake targeted organising campaigns • Work with the Media (Print & Electronic) to project the image of the trade union movement in the public sphere.

9. Innovative Organising Approaches & Models • Community-based unionism • Enterprise-based unionism • Alliance building • National and international Networks

10. GROUP WORK • Identify the issues which trade unions should use as campaign tools in order to be able to organise workers in the domestic labour sector into viable trade unions. • What do envisage as likely challenges to extending unionism to domestic workers in your countries? Suggest measures to overcome these challenges. Elect a reporter to introduce your group report at the plenary session

11. The End Thank you! 