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‘Roma’ casts spotlight on Latin America’s domestic workers
MONTEVIDEO, Feb 20, 2019 (AFP) – She scrubs plates, mops floors and washes
clothes with vigor. She works when others relax. And she plays games with
children who are not hers, even though they might feel a bit like family by
now.
Just like Cleo, the live-in nanny in Alfonso Cuaron’s Oscar-nominated film
“Roma,” Ignacia Ponciano represents millions of women working in domestic
service across Latin America for want of a better opportunity.
“Nacha,” as she is known, started working at the Rodriguez household in
Mexico City 30 years ago, when she was in her late teens. She left her rural
village for the capital looking for a break
Once she found both a job and a home, she never left.
Ponciano’s story is hardly uncommon for women in Latin America, where the
work and personal lives of so many domestic employees are closely
intertwined.
“Roma” is Cuaron’s tribute to his childhood nanny Libo and women like her
across the region — forever in the background yet an integral part of the
families that they serve.
In recent years, several countries have established laws to formalize what
tend to be very ad hoc employment contracts for maids and nannies.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) enshrined job security and
benefits in a convention in 2013 — so far, more than a dozen countries in
the region have ratified it.
But other regional economic and migration crises have made its lofty goals
difficult to achieve.
– 18 million workers –
In the home where she says she landed “without knowing how to do
anything,” Ponciano worked cleaning, cooking and looking after Penelope, the
daughter of her boss, who was divorced and living with her sister.
She quickly became a confidante to everyone in the house.
But while it was a close-knit, family-like community, it was also the
source of her livelihood — and she had no formal contract to protect her
from the whims of fate.
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According to the ILO, there are 18 million domestic workers in Latin
America, 93 percent of them women, making it “one of the most important
occupations for women in the region.”
But it is almost 80 percent informal employment, meaning workers have
trouble accessing social security, lack opportunities for advancement and
have no recourse for workplace inspections, the ILO says.
There is also no collective bargaining to lobby for better work
conditions.
– Impersonal relations –
With new lifestyles and new regulations, workers who live with their
employers have become the exception, not the rule, and this change is having
an impact on how the homes themselves are designed.
Lourdes Cruz Gonzalez Franco, a researcher from the National University of
Mexico, said it is unusual now for architects to plan for servants’ quarters
in new houses.
“Although you can’t generalize, because the upper classes still plan for
servants’ quarters, there is a tendency to get rid of them or convert them
into guest rooms or studios,” she said.
That means that domestic servants have to commute to work, often for
hours, which in turn leads to more superficial relations with their employers
than the close ties portrayed in “Roma,” set in the 1970s.
Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru,
Uruguay and Venezuela, among others, have introduced rules that establish
base salaries and other benefits.
In December, Mexico’s Supreme Court ordered that some two million domestic
workers be enrolled in the social security system within three years to
guarantee their access to public health care and other benefits.
Nevertheless, countries that have made progress in the sector, like
Argentina, have discovered that the challenge does not end with writing new
laws.
Since 2013, domestic workers there have had the right to overtime, paid
holidays and maternity leave. Yet still some 57 percent of the work in
private homes is on an informal basis.
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Workers are also very vulnerable to economic and social unrest, as has
been the case in Brazil.
Despite a 2013 law to benefit domestic workers, the economic crash two
years later dealt a serious blow to the country’s safety net.
Now, around a third of Brazil’s 6.2 million domestic workers are employed
on an off-the-books basis.
– Half a kilo of meat –
The situation is even worse in crisis-torn Venezuela, where 41-year-old
Marbelis Martnez cleans apartments.
Despite a 2012 law protecting domestic workers, she is lucky if she can
afford half a kilo (one pound) of meat a week.
“It won’t even get me a dozen eggs,” she said of her pay.
Even in the United States, seen by some in the region as a promised land,
a survey by the National Union of Domestic Employees found that “workers are
exposed to the whims of their employers.”
According to the study, 23 percent of dismissals were because people
complained about their working conditions. In many cases, the workers’
immigration status obliges them to suffer in silence.
But that helplessness is often experienced by Latin American workers in
their home countries.
In Guatemala, Maritza Velasquez, president of the Association of Domestic
Workers, said the majority of maids come from indigenous communities, and few
make even the minimum wage of $384 a month.
“The monthly wage can go from $90 a $320, but there are almost no
complaints for fear of reprisals,” she said.
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