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Thank you. Okay. thank you. Welcome to the session, which will focus on domestic work as part of our R. C. 46 program.

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I'm first going to read the acknowledgment of country on behalf of everyone gathered. I pay respect to the spirit of country here in Norm, where we are meeting. I acknowledged the past and present Kulan nation, Veron, Jerry Voyeur, as the sovereign people here the cultural knowledge holders who maintain and promote the norm of original law, customs, and custodianship, responsibilities for country and the people

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and the people. That country continues to sustain generation of the generation into the future. For all of us. I recognise the important contribution that first nations thinkers have made to sociology, including challenges to our dominant ways of thinking. We thank all first nations delegates in the room today for their contributions to knowledge in the discipline.

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Okay, I'm going to and over to David now,

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so how do I get right now?

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Okay, so I'm going to open.

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So I would like to ask each of the presenters to just briefly introduce themselves before you start.

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and then you each have 15 min, and then we'll give time for questions at the end. Thank you.

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and I. Will. You keep time for me. and how many, how much time there are.

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Okay. Hello, everyone. thanks very much for joining the session online. And in person. they are only a few year in person. But I'm sure there are many online. I can see you. Okay. So this presentation is based on male domestic workers, experiences of being employed as domestic workers in China, spoke South Africa, and I did this topic because

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it's a clear gap in the literature on domestic work from a male perspective. And lots of the research is on a female domestic workers, perspectives, as we all here today as well. But today, we can to look at a male speaker. So I'm David, a toy from the University of Johannesburg. And it's a really great to be here.

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Okay. So

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as a background. Domestic work has always been part of the female employment sector. The the bulk of domestic work. Literature focuses on the experiences of female domestic workers who are usually marginalized

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and for my own backgrounds. But often what we see in the literature is, it ignores the experiences of mal domestic workers, and you see that mal domestic workers is not something that is

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a new phenomenon in South Africa, for example, with the start of when they found it in China's book with the gold was in the 18 eighties. a lot of Domestic workers from Malawi. Male domestic workers ended up as housekeepers or domestic work is full for the sakeless day. Now, in other countries, in other African countries, such as Z Zambia and Tanzania. Now, domestic work is also part of the fabric of

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the basic work sector, and you will see in Europe there is a big shift that's happening in countries such as Italy and Germany, where there's lots of there's an increase of men, especially Margaret Menu, or employed as domestic workers, butlers.

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housekeepers, and so on. So, although the the profile of domestic work is still predominantly black female migrant. There is also this other side of being a male mig on domestic work in a country.

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Now typically that the basic work is to be purely paid. Few domestic workers have employment contracts, few of them belong to unions. So this collective agency of domestic work is very low. in order to improve the material well, being, Often domestic work is male and female need to draw on the individual strategies and coping strategies to improve their daily work.

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Now, you see, in this picture there is a picture I took of one of the participants with his consent.

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and he is a male domestic worker in Johannesburg, in Parkhurst, and where he is not just a cleaner, but he's also the cook for the family.

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Now, if I go back to the well being the the individual strategies of domestic workers agile on the work from Sydney guts, we said, I'm labor, geography, and she came up with the topology of resilience, reworking, and resistance in a specific way. Now, resistance? as you know, it's a strongly a position of practice

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with the go to the swept and an equal place of power relations. Resilience is to find a strategy of endurance and determination to survive in a place of

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conditions on a daily basis, without really challenging the power, structure and reworkings. Another type of agency which will first altering the conditions of people's existence to enable more workable and comfortable laws within the power and legal stretches. So it's a very interesting topology resistance on the one side, resilience, and the other side and reworking sort of in the middle. Some way.

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Now, my methods and profile and my research question is about the experiences of migrant my domestic workers of South Africa. And how did I use resistance to working with Zillion strategies to do that? Working lives? But it focuses on Joanne's book because historical studies like I said, from Charles, from onsolen they are all historical. work on mal. Domestic work has been in Jan as big started in the 18 eighties.

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but yeah, I saw that from from one of my friends as a male domestic worker, and through that I use noble sampling to get access to other domestic. Who of my domestic work, with what's very interesting is all these Mal domestic workers are either Malawian or Northern Zimbabwe.

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and most of them love on the premises of the employers. it's all in the sort of the affluent areas in Janus Parker's Park view popped down north and sound, but also interesting, is that they do all types of jobs related to domestic work, cleaning, sweeping, making baits, laundry, but also outside the music, gardening, pool, cleaning, painting, January household and maintenance. So they do. That's a good 2 or 3 people's jobs within. One

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also interesting is that they earn much more than the minimum wage, and on average they earn about $8,000 a month. Normally, at the domestic work, a full-time domestic book, Female Domestic book ends about 3 or 4,000, and around the months.

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So in terms of this 3 topologies, I. It was very clear that they use the full types of individual strategies to

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to cope, and the first one the resistance which I cited. They didn't really use resistance. in their work, setting as working as the Mesa Luca. But I use resistance for negotiating cross-border migration. So in all the interviews the participants now inherited this sort of vision that they have a better life that will have have a better life in South Africa, and they come from vapour pacons in Malawi and Northern Zimbabwe, where many of the

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the participant sits. There are no jobs there. we can't survive in order to survive. I need a job, and I need to provide to my family. So this thing about the father, who also came strongly out of being a good father, and I resist that I can't

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provide for their family if they stay in in their home country, so they have to come to South Africa to find a job and to provide to their family. Normally their family, their their wives and wife, or wives and children are staying behind in Malawi or Zimbabwe.

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Now a working strategy was very interesting as well. one. Once once they came to South Africa, they use their social capital, they use friendship, their friends who other family members who are already here in South Africa to find them jobs to help them with. coming to South Africa. Now, what's interesting, none of the participants

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started working as domestic work or housekeepers. They started in the construction industry, or as a waiters, or one of them worked at a at and breakfast

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as sort of a kitchen staff. We we paid meals and so on. And what's interesting is most of these male domestic workers. Now. you know, we're we're brought up by the mothers all the grand mothers how to help their sisters and their mothers within the household. So they all have some sort of this domestic work skills. But coming to South Africa, none of them originally in that update, will start the data in it up in domestic with. But and through these, first of all, they can to as a construction worker or way to, but in that the job hopping between the different jobs because of low pay

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and temporary jobs, and so on. So it was very sort of precarious in the beginning, until I ended up as a domestic worker for family, and usually what happened is, you know, they will do painting or construction work at some some families household, and through that they they learn as as a friend of the employer would say, Okay, I need someone to help me with.

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You know my own back and in the candy, and then I also feel as they can cook and clean, and and I was employed as a housekeeper. One of the participants also worked as a

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care work for older couple, one of the up to out agenda, gentlemen with bathing and shopping, and so on.

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So there's job hopping until they ended up in domestic work. Sick, then, which is interesting, is usually domestic work is sort of the entry level. job for many female domestic workers who find the basic work is the only solution. In this case there's a constant job hopping until they ended up in domestic work, which is relatively better paid than the female partners.

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Now, resilience, once they are employed as to mystic workers, have found this strategy of resilience are quite used often, and what they do is they.

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you know, they accept that they are domestic workers or housekeepers. They don't really change or disrupt the power system. They don't want to change the the labor laws, and so many of them don't have contracts, but they accept it that you say resilience to find other peace jobs. So many of them do weekends work, we there to t the garden of another family, or pull cleaning

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walking the dogs is typically what you see in these sort of suburbs is dark walking painters and some other weekends and All of them are paid reasonably well as

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In addition to these multiple piece jobs they have, and they can send back money home and what they do with this money is they they bold a house they for one day, when they retire, they all want to move back to the village they come from in Malawi or in Northern Zimbabwe, so none of them want to stay beyond in South Africa, for now. So it's very interesting, this sort of

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negotiation that's happening between accepting of all the domestic workers, but also doing peace jobs. Typical masculine types of jobs like painting and gardening, have a weekends and using that money to send back. like, I said. Most of them live on the premises of the employers where they get free lodging. Sometimes it gets free food, birthday praise, and so they become part of the family

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and so they do save a lot of money that is consumed back home. Now, what I've found is this satellite existence in the Gen. That it is domestic work division. And it was very interesting is

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that you know, typically we, you find feminist feminists and masculine spaces of domestic work. We in South Africa are now in other countries like Mexico, so main are usually working outside, doing the gardening work on the pool, cleaning, walking the doors, and women work inside, doing the laundry, cleaning, sweating the floors, and so on

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In this case all of them are very proud of of being domestic workers, and and but when once I ask, is the most, we look not the female occupation, and then they got quite offended, and I said, No women must work outside. The main can do outside work, because sometimes you have. Maybe you have a big garden. She cannot push the lawns loan mower, and that's the phone to the female domestic, local.

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and they cannot take the Latin and the it's hard for a woman. It's a job for us main. So this, this masculine identity of doing outside work comes out very strong when it comes to inside work. It's not that strong, so we we better clean this. And women I can. I can make a bait better than a female to me sick. I can put bay meals better than a female. So this proudness is coming out.

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When when I ask about you know, do you resist doing some types of the tasks. And the one said, There's a maid. And should you need a first to a female, the basically, when it comes to ironing. I'll clean the dishes. I'm mopped up and back in the floors. I change the bit, I clean the bathroom, I clean it to it. I do everything but the laundry and the ironing. The maid is to it when it comes to ironing. That's the time when I go to the garden, and Daniel especially works for a heterosexual couple with children.

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and he was

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quite shine that saints, as he has to do lawns, especially with female underway. At this, not in these, he said, in his When he was brought up. He didn't even see his mothers or sisters under way didn't want to touch it. Nothing. So I I think this, the dualism of gender domestic work comes out quite clearly in a set of resistance, and, luckily for him, the employers, isn't it up as the is fortunate enough to employ if another female domestic work, when it comes to and doing the loan join.

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So the discussion conclusion, in conclusion of that study is small in scope. It provides a snapshot of particular group of migrant mal domestic. It shows male domestic groups are connected to the international division of work with class, whereas in gender or linked in this case, it also shows that main performing the mystic work, the migrant identity of workers at adds a new layer of complexity complexity to the study of pedestic work.

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What's very interesting is this study shows that

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it does not appear that that domestic workers in this case, but also in a general sense, will change, or the swap to power structure of joining unions and collective organizations

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mit Ctl, and they will, they will start from individual side and trying to resist certain tasks or certain opportunities, but they are also quite resilient, and I just accept it, but I do extra work for it. So my conclusion is to indicate this indicates that in order to protect domestic workers as a going from expectation, because it's a job that's very highly exploitative one

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and vulnerable to improve their livelihoods collectively, regulators, enforcement authorities and trade unions

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need to adopt a active approach to include workers as the initiative for transformative actions and collective resistance at a border scale is unlikely to originate from the workers themselves, and this is common throughout the domestic work. Literature is that unions.

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you know, small in size, and they bullet in it by members. So perhaps we should look from the work as well, and what types of individual agencies they use to this sort of resistance, resilience in the re-working strategies to try and improve the working lots of a vulnerable group of workers. And thank you very much. That's it.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: Thank you very much, David.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: Thank you very much, David. It was very fascinating.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: yeah, there's a lot of. There's some questions I'd like to ask you about at the end of the discussion.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: I'd like to David was perfectly in time. So I'd like to introduce our next presenter, who who is a biancatami

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Ugljesa Radulovic: and her papers total matching comfortable others, private employment agencies, response to intimate workplace crosses in South Africa's domestic sector over to you. Vancouver.

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Bianca Tame: Thank you.

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Bianca Tame: I just went to figure this part out where I share my screen.

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Bianca Tame:  yeah.

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Bianca Tame: can everyone see my screen

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is

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Bianca Tame: okay. Great.

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Bianca Tame: So

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Bianca Tame: my name is Banga team. I'm from the University of Cape Town.

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Bianca Tame: today, I'm presenting on a small part of my Phd research, which set out to explore this process of identity niching that happens between employers, migrant domestic workers and private employment agencies. And That specialize in placing domestic workers in private households. I've framed this idea of identity niching in relation to the commodification of intimate work

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Bianca Tame: focusing specifically on this idea of an ideal type of domestic worker because of their intimate work culture. And so throughout this presentation, and throughout my work. I referred to an ideal type of domestic worker as a comfortable other

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Bianca Tame: my primary goal initiative was to focus on the theme of migration. So it follows on nicely from David's presentation. And look at regional care chains, not global care chains, and question how those who are less likely to have access to decent work can gain access to decent work. In South Africa's domestic work sector.

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Bianca Tame: I conducted 57 interviews with migrant domestic workers, employers, private employment agencies, and key informants trying to track some of the developments that were happening in South Africa's domestic sector in the post apartheid era.

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Bianca Tame: Now in relation to Mike and domestic workers. I spent a year conducting ethnography to learn and to track the employment journeys in the domestic sector, to understand how and why they were trying to seek this agency recruited state status. And I focus specifically on Zimbabwe and migrant domestic workers because

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Bianca Tame: a great deal of the literature shows that they, the largest group of foreign nationals working in South Africa. So today's presentation is concerned, basically with the roll off and the demand for the services of private employment agencies that specialize in placements.

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Bianca Tame:  context. So just to give everyone a bit of context before 2,017, it was quite common to read that South Africa has almost 1 million domestic workers. The demographic profile is such that domestic workers are primarily black African women.

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Bianca Tame: Currently, we've seen a major decline. Our latest labor Force survey suggest that there's 797,000 domestic workers. And part of the reason for this this decline is because of South Africa's aiding economic climate.

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Bianca Tame: a large number of domestic workers were retrains during COVID-19 hustles are shifting away from direct employment arrangements, and they're using outsource cleaning companies or platform domestic work.

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Bianca Tame: among the middle and upper middle class hustles. Research suggest that employers are reluctant to hire domestic workers inform me. So the typical word of mouth arrangement. And it's did they? Turning to these agencies so

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Bianca Tame: to find comfortable others, and primarily because of issues of trust, control and power relations, to quote David's recent article, published in 2,021. But despite all of these key changes that are happening in the domestic sector. The reality is that households still require Keating full time cleaning. They need child and elderly care. So my research focuses on placements where agencies are specializing

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Bianca Tame: primarily with full time domestic workers.

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Bianca Tame: Now.

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Bianca Tame: I've I've yeah. I've been thinking a lot about the research and trying to make some connections with the literature that we've been reading over the last 10 years in terms of transformations that are happening in South Africa's domestic sector.

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Bianca Tame: So in terms of framing my research, I refer to the household as an intimate work case, and this is intentional. And what it does is it signals that employees are realizing. Domestic workers have employment rights and domestic workers are trying to access those rights through through these private employment agencies.

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Bianca Tame: I have a background in sociology of work. So I've looked closely at the overlapping debates regarding workplace change because of restructuring from above. So where the State intervenes and tries to protect vulnerable workers, and in this case domestic workers. And so for this reason, and drawing on 150,

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Bianca Tame: the literature drawing on the data, I talk about an intimate workplace crisis and what it means for domestic workers is that they are immense difficulties, realizing the employment rights primarily because of their migrant status informality that is persistent in the domestic sector.

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Bianca Tame: This long standing issue of under employment, which seems to be getting worse and obviously in relation to employees creatively cutting back on employing a full time domestic worker because they either indifferent or they resistant to the label legislation that was designed to protect the employment rights.

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Bianca Tame: The literature also points to how the State's role in recognizing domestic workers employment rights

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Bianca Tame: has had these unintended consequences. So, for example, trade unions are no longer necessarily to go to a point to represent domestic workers, employment rights. And it's their domestic workers if they have issues, if they are experiencing an unfair dismissal. They go to the Ccm. A. To address those concerns. But this doesn't necessarily mean it creates opportunities for decent work.

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Bianca Tame: Now, the Internet, what taste Christ? yeah. Crisis for employers is somewhat different because it plays on this idea of who is the ideal type of domestic work. And how can one find an ideal type of domestic worker? And so here the findings show that employers are struggling just to be labor compliant

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Bianca Tame: and they struggle, especially when they have to deal with difficult issues that arise in the household, because, again, of trust power issues and and so on. So.

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Bianca Tame: sorry I need to go back to the previous side, because the most important point here is the last point where, in trying to frame this idea of how workers and employees experiencing this intimate workplace crisis, I draw on a labor scholars who've talked about a crisis of representation in relation to trade unions struggling to represent workers right? And I extend to employees because some reason. But if those reasons might be, and however you may interpret what's happening in the South African domestic sector.

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Bianca Tame: employees are struggling to be labor compliant, and so for them, somebody somewhere out there has to represent their interest as well. And so this is where this idea of a crisis of representation emerges. And effectively, it's it's it's responding to how domestic work is experiencing the intimate workplace.

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Bianca Tame: Now, here's a very quick snapshot of everything that I can't go through with you today. But

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Bianca Tame: If we look at private employment agencies. the yeah. Sorry I've lost my. So so if we look at the findings and we look at it in relation to this board literature. that we have available to us. We see that private employment agencies.

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Bianca Tame: whether they specialize in outsource cleaning services, or they deal with placements, permanent placements. They are responding to employers. Perception that the law is pro-employed.

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Bianca Tame: Well, they fear the law because they might be taken to the Ccm. A. If they unfairly dismiss a domestic worker to put it crudely, employees seeking the services of private employment agencies because they offer this perception that they have professionally screen candidates. They have a systematic process to ensure that employers can choose the right candidate from. They pull off candidates that they have available to them.

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Bianca Tame: What is perhaps different in terms of the international literature is that We often read

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Bianca Tame: that agencies make a placement or they make a match. But in South Africa's landscape employers are given all the means and systems and processes, and they eventually decide on who they comfortable at the might be for them.

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Bianca Tame: Now, if we move to the middle column, and we look at employers. And we zoom in again, and we gain some insight into how private employment agencies are operating in the domestic sector, especially those with full time care needs or teaming needs.

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Bianca Tame: again. This, this, this persistent issue, that they don't trust informal hiring methods, and so they would rather go to a private employment agency for professionally screen candidate. Now, what the findings show is that

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Bianca Tame: why do employees use private employment agencies, partly because they have a history of informally hiring domestic workers, and when they is a crisis they don't know what to do in the fearful of what the consequences might be

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Bianca Tame: So they approach private employment agencies to access these screen candidates. and and this is where it gets interesting. And there's a lot of overlap with the international literature, and that they should have at least 2 years work experience. But they have to have a reference letter that supports that they were working in South Africa for 2 years

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Bianca Tame: and they are comfortable, others in in the sense that they meet all the criteria outlined by the agency. Now, employers

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Bianca Tame: get a selection of candidates, but they also interview the candidates, and in addition to interviewing the candidates, they have what they call a trial work period so they can test if somebody is the right fit for their house and the child work period may last for 3 days, one day or a week.

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Bianca Tame: Then the employer decides, okay, this is the person that suits my requirements. because there is a serious issue with sift.

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Bianca Tame: domestic workers cleaning out houses, domestic workers foring every day. agencies facilitate a process where the candidates can undergo a polygraph test

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Bianca Tame: or the details can be run through the state of the technology to check that they do not have a criminal record. So this is also another reason why private employment agencies are incredibly popular among the middle and upper middle class households, seeking full time domestic workers for whatever they needs may be in a household.

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Bianca Tame: So if we look at the last column migrant domestic workers. What is happening there now?

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Bianca Tame: It's pretty clear that private employment agencies, gatekeeping practices have a serious effect on the employment pathways like, how do they get from the starting point, earning a reference letter to finally finding a permanent employment? it's quite complicated. But what what we learn here is that They struggle to access agency.

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Bianca Tame: recruited status, and this struggle is meaningful for them because they want to access the salaries that David was talking about in the first presentation high, an I high earning income which can range from 4,500 to 5,000, 6,000, and depending on what their skill sets might be, and which hassle they are placed in. So we see that they also

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Bianca Tame: gain access to the an intermediary that make sure. At least the ideal scenario is that they make sure that they have an employment contract, and they gain access to market related salaries. Now, if we track Mike and domestic work as employment choices, and we look at it very close, closely and very critically, we gain insight into the underbelly of the domestic sector.

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Bianca Tame: So I don't know if somebody is trying to tell me. I'm running at a time.

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Bianca Tame: I can hear a noise. So I'm gonna quickly go over to the slide here, and and and speak to the issue of how migrant domestic work is. Struggle for 3 min. Bianca. So you still have 3 min, just you know, okay, good. Okay. Okay. Good. But I I think I'll wrap up soon. So in this slide. Here, I think what is important about the slide is understanding how they experience private employment agencies from the domestic workers

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Bianca Tame: point of view but bearing in mind that it's a history, and it's a struggle to earn their status as comfortable, others so.

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Bianca Tame: And some of these quotes, I'll just read them out to you that you can get a sense of how domestic workers talked about the experience with private employment agencies. So this right, for example, says when you want something that you see especially to me, I think it is working, because, considering what I'm getting now in reference to the salary. I don't think it was pointless. It was worthwhile

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Bianca Tame: I got this says, now I'm smiling. Now. Here I'm starting at 8 am. And then I'm finishing at 4 Pm. I'm having 30 min T. Time, and then 1 h lunch time. In fact, the agent came personally to ask me ages, are you happy here. And I said, Yes, I am happy.

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Bianca Tame: Alice is the pay you can negotiate with your agent working conditions. You can negotiate.

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Bianca Tame: And again, rather sorry.

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Bianca Tame:  yeah. Working conditions. You can negotiate again with your agents rather than just talking one on one with the employer, and you can argue if you have a contract, even if I won't leave work now, I can produce my contract and say, no. This is the terms and conditions of what we agreed, and we and you are not applying them. So I have to leave. It's easier that way.

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Bianca Tame: And then last one is, you know what I'm realizing because where I am right now, I'm living in. But the conditions that I'm living in is wonderful. So now, and I'm treated like a professional, and they know that I have got right. So everything no organized unlike. When you go and find a job and you are foreigner. Sometimes they take advantage of you. But here where I am, I have rights. I'm working 6 months. I'm enjoying what I'm doing and what they promised. They are keeping it

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Bianca Tame: so. in relation to some of these key points. we need to bear in mind that they multiple debates regarding the role of private employment agencies in the sector. And what my finding suggest is that some, not all of these agencies are championing domestic workers, employment rights. But they've also adopted a system, pathetic approach to employees anxiety and uncertainty as employees of domestic workers.

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Bianca Tame: So, in other words, private employment agencies are potentially representing the interest of both domestic workers and employees, but obviously with an emphasis on an intimate work culture that employs the mind because of the personalized and atomized nature of domestic work.

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Bianca Tame: So I'm gonna just wrap up here. with these 3 books. Because what is interesting about each of these key contributions in the South in South Africa's domestic sector is that all of these books talk about intermediaries in South Africa, but none of them, obviously are situating it in the context of

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Bianca Tame: what might lie behind the surface and suggest that they are some avenues and opportunities for realizing domestic work as employment rights. And I leave. I'll leave it with that, and I look forward to the questions and answers. Thank you.

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Thank you so much, Bianca. That was very very interesting and very.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: thank you.

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Bianca Tame: Thank you. I'm just battling to stop sharing my screen. I'm just giving you a heads up.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: Okay, maybe you can ping the tech support that was in.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: Oh, wait, I see it. Stop sharing. There we go. Thank you. Thank you so much. on to our next presenter. My to best case from Mexico. and I'm going to struggle to to read this the startle as I I don't speak Spanish or read Spanish, so I think that it would be best if you introduced us to the title.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: Thank you so much. Okay, and over to you.

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Mayte Vazquez: hi! My name is my. I am currently studying my Master's degree in social anthropology, at the

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Mayte Vazquez: which is in Monterey, Mexico, the northern part of Mexico, the northern part of Mexico, and the title of my work is

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Mayte Vazquez: So I put the title in English so everyone could understand, and it pretty much is

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Mayte Vazquez: domestic work, social mobility and stigma notes from an auto ethnography. It is a bachelor's thesis that I did at the my hometown. I put a little note or mark in domestic work, because in Latin America. Domestic workers have claimed that they don't like to be called domestic workers because they think that

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Mayte Vazquez: domestic is still a discriminatory. It has a discriminatory connotation, and it only reaffirms the hierarchies between employers and employees. so they like to be called Trava had as the logar instead of as domestic, as domestic us, which is like domestic workers.

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Mayte Vazquez: However, in English, I haven't found that discussion between the message, and like another way to say it so for their own. I would just say domestic work.

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Mayte Vazquez: and my work is pretty much a look into my family's complex relationship with domestic work. Our past as domestic workers and our present as women who hire other domestic workers.

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Mayte Vazquez: I think it is a complex relationship because it is an experienced field with shame, surrounded by silence, but also with lots of pride. So yes, I think it's very complex, and that's why I decided to do this project.

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Mayte Vazquez: The background comes from my own experience. Cleaning homes in Copenhagen, Denmark, for 5 months

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Mayte Vazquez: in 2,018 I did a student exchange

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Mayte Vazquez: in Denmark for one year, and during that year I worked for 5 months. Although I really enjoyed that experience. I was very happy cleaning homes in Denmark. Once I went back to Mexico, I realized that I didn't feel comfortable talking about it with other people, especially at my university.

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Mayte Vazquez: My university is a very prestigious private university. So it's targeted towards an upper middle class or upper class. So I didn't like to talk about it with my friends or my teachers, because I thought it was embarrassing.

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Mayte Vazquez: and realizing that I didn't like to talk about it. I also remember that my mom sometimes talked about her experience aside a message worker when she was younger.

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Mayte Vazquez: but I realized that she talked about it almost as a secret secret, something that was bad, something that

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Mayte Vazquez: was painful. And after that, I realized, oh, I think there's something interesting here. Why don't we talk about our experiences, or why do I feel so ashamed about these experience cleaning homes.

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Mayte Vazquez: So, as I said before, this is a story about my family's relationship with the message work. However, I only focus on my maternal family, and there's a family tree of my on my material side.

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Mayte Vazquez: I focused only on my mother's generation, which is Iliana as mean Magnolia, Margarita and Heranu

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Mayte Vazquez: in Orange are all the people who were once domestic workers.

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Mayte Vazquez: As you can see, there's not only women domestic workers. There's also male domestic workers. However, one, when I did the research project. I ignore them because I thought only women were the messy workers.

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Mayte Vazquez: Now I realized it was a pretty big mistake. That's why I'm doing right now in my master's research project. But at that time I thought only women were the domestic workers.

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Mayte Vazquez: Hmm! Another interesting fact was that I thought only my mom's generation were domestic workers, but once I gave the theses to my aunts and costings, 2 of my cousins told me that they were also domestic workers. So we have a very intimate close relationship as to mixed up workers, but also as

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Mayte Vazquez: people who hire other domestic workers.

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Mayte Vazquez: and the question that pretty much guided. My research was, why don't we talk about our experience as domestic workers?

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Mayte Vazquez: I realized that for me and my family domestic work is not just a job. It's a social position, and especially a social position that we must stay away from.

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Mayte Vazquez: It is a stigmatizing position that must be hidden because my mom and her sister experience upwards social mobility. They went from a working class family to a middle class family, so, in order to make sure that they were known and recognized as middle class, they had to hide their past as working class, and especially as domestic workers.

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Mayte Vazquez: Another very interesting fact is that, depending on how much social mobility the person experience, it becomes stigmatizing.

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Mayte Vazquez: So for my mom, who was the one that experienced the most up for social mobility. She's the one that highs it the most, the one who feels most ashamed and refuses to talk about it openly. However, her older sister, who is the one who is free and the least social mobility. She's a little bit more open about it, but it's not like she talks about it with strangers or with people that she just met. So it really depends on how much social mobility they experience, how much they hide it.

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Mayte Vazquez: As I said before, it, this is sorry about my family, and they were my mom and her sisters. They were domestic workers in the city of Puebla, in the years of 1,970 and 1,980, which were used a very fast industrialization of the city of Puebla.

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Mayte Vazquez: How did they become domestic workers.

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Mayte Vazquez: After turning 13, each of my mom and each of her sisters. They couldn't continue their studies because they didn't have any more money. Their father just told them.

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Mayte Vazquez: I can't no longer have 4 your studies. So this is where it ends. However, their mom, my grandmother told them not to worry, and that they would find a way to continue their studies.

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Mayte Vazquez: So what my grandmother did is that she started watching other people's clothes, and both well, my mom and her sister started cleaning homes in exchange of money.

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Mayte Vazquez: At first they clean people, the homes of people they knew like in their neighborhood or close friends. However, as time moved on and they grew older, they started cleaning homes in neighborhoods that were further away, and also were more affluent, and in hopes of people that had more money

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Mayte Vazquez: even though my mom and her 2 older sisters could afford continue their studies, my oldest phone couldn't continue studying since she was the older sister she had other responsibilities. She had more homework, no domestic chores, responsibilities, and she also had to help

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Mayte Vazquez: taking care of her sisters. She was also the one who married the youngest at 15, and she was a mom at 16. So those 2 facts getting married very young and having

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Mayte Vazquez: a kid at 16, also influence on why, she was the one that experienced the least social mobility.

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Mayte Vazquez: on the other side, her sisters, including my mom. After they finished university they got jobs with more social prestige, and they also got married, obtaining a different woman food status.

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Mayte Vazquez: So my oldest aunt was the only one who couldn't continue studying for the rest of her family obtained a bachelor's degree. They went to university.

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Mayte Vazquez: and that's a picture of my grandparents and my mom when she was a kid.

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Mayte Vazquez: so, my mom, since she was very young she was taught how to do the message. Yours. That's why once she needed money. Domestic work was the most feed job for her, because she knew how to do it, and people saw her as someone who was fit to do it.

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Mayte Vazquez: However, my story and my nuclear family story is very different. I never had to work to support myself and my studies.

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Mayte Vazquez: and, contrary to my mom, I always went to private schools and leave a comfortable life.

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Mayte Vazquez: and also very country. And very important is that I wasn't taught to do the messageures. I was taught to hire another woman to do them. As long as I can remember there was always a domestic worker in my house, so I never knew learn how to make them, but I knew how to that. I had to hire someone else.

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Mayte Vazquez: However, when I went to Denmark that changed completely. So in Mexico. I'm like the ideal woman to hire someone else. When people see me they don't necessarily think, oh, domestic worker! But once I went to Denmark I was the ideal person to do domestic work, and it was very easy for me to get a job cleaning ha poems.

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Mayte Vazquez: So why is it a stigmatizing position? Why did I come to that conclusion?

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Mayte Vazquez: Mostly because my family only talk about their experiences as some message workers with a small amount of people, mostly reduced to themselves ourselves. My mom is the only one that openly recognizes that she doesn't like to talk about it, and that she feels ashamed. The rest of her sisters told me that they were open about it, and that they weren't ashamed, and they talk about it with their friends.

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Mayte Vazquez: But once I asked them, Who are your friends? They said, Oh, my sister, are my friends. So I realized, oh, so you only talk about it with people that did the work. And then my aunt, one of my aunts, told me, no, you're right. I don't talk about it with strangers, with people that I just met, and I only talked about it with one of my

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Mayte Vazquez: friends, who was also a domestic workers.

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Mayte Vazquez: So they talk about it with people who are also domestic workers who shared that past experience. However, they never talk about it with the domestic workers that they hire, so if they hire at the massive worker. They don't share it, and I think that they don't share it, because if they do, it's putting themselves in the same position and going back to that place that they don't want to be associated with.

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Mayte Vazquez: although I it was very difficult, because, calling it stigmatizing could be.

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Mayte Vazquez: I feel like. Oh, maybe it would make domestic workers uncomfortable to say, Oh, my parents feel ashamed about this. However, I think it's very important to understand why they don't talk about it, and I think that I had to understand that concealment is a way of being perceived normal. We think our social circle. It's not to blame them or think they're bad people because they hide it.

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Mayte Vazquez: and also because once they got married, it was a very antagonistic relationship between in a domestic order, and what they had to do to get there.

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Mayte Vazquez: And what does my family story contribute to the discussion about domestic work? Purely? I think it talks about the evaluation and ABC list of domestic work, the fact that they don't like to talk about it, and even though they know the value because they did it themselves.

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Mayte Vazquez: They reproduce negative images and stereotypes about domestic workers.

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Mayte Vazquez: and also my family doesn't well, probably be, too, but they experience some mistreatment of domestic workers, and they recognize it, however, sometimes they reproduce that mistreatment just to refresh the her keys, that it sees between them and the domestic workers that they hire.

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Mayte Vazquez: I think it also talks about the reproduction of cultures of servitude because of this constant continuity to hire someone else to do their domestic ch, and to be like the

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Mayte Vazquez: but the thing that defines them as being middle class.

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Mayte Vazquez: And that's it.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: Thank you so much, Mark. Yet, my you obviously have so much to offer with your insider point of view, very fast standing. I think it's going to make for a very interesting discussion now, Next presenter is critic appendy

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Ugljesa Radulovic: with the paper titled Fighting for arts, for negotiating in formality struggles with domestic work to work organizing, and everyday inequalities during COVID-19 of its you could to go.

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Kritika Pandey: Thank you so much.

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Kritika Pandey: sorry. I'm just setting it up

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Kritika Pandey: so. thank you so much. Everyone for being here today. I'm really excited to present my research and also engage with such interesting and important work that my co-panelists have talked about. I think that.

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Kritika Pandey: I I didn't expect this question to come to my mind after all these presentations that have happened in my own that I'll be talking about. But I think that for me. it's really important. How

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Kritika Pandey: all these topics that we have kind of been talking about for me ask a larger question of what, exactly, is the definition and the vocabulary and understanding of domestic work. And I think that all these papers together kind of challenge, a standardized understanding of domestic work, and

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Kritika Pandey: treat it as more of a dynamic work sector which has so many changes and so many interesting things happening in it. So yeah. So I'm excited to present my work. So

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Kritika Pandey: my paper is titled my papers titled fighting for rights while negotiating in formality struggles of care workers, and with everyday inequal organizing and everyday inequalities during the pandemic. So I. This research is a part of my research as a Phd. Student at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles. And the data that I've been used, I'll be I have used for this paper comes largely from

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Kritika Pandey: my field work during the pandemic in Los Angeles with a migrant advocacy organization called Philipino Worker center, which is also a part of the California coalition for domestic workers.

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Kritika Pandey: So, to begin with, I will just start with this quote that I that you can see on the screen now. So this quote is from one of the members who were participating in a protest gathering in late 2,020

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Kritika Pandey: to resist the veto of a Health and safety bill that was introduced by the California coalition of domestic workers in the captain, the State Senate in the midst of the pandemic. And so the organizations the organizations hope that with this.

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Kritika Pandey: with this crisis that has emerged, and with the way in which the State was recognizing domestic workers as essential and as important, then also as precarious. They expected that the State would extend these protections which domestic workers have been since forever excluded from in the Us. Which include safety, occupational safety, and health guidelines that cover most other professions in the Us. And so

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Kritika Pandey: when the we do okay, when the governor, we do this, it came as a really rude surprise to the workers, and and to the one for organizations. And so this quote that you see highlights, 2 important points that I seek to engage with in this paper.

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Kritika Pandey: And so the first is that it highlights the contradiction that has always existed and paid domestic work. and has been highlighted again in the context of the pandemic where

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Kritika Pandey: domestic workers continues, continue to be to struggle with devaluation, with exclusion from labour laws, with exploitation and unsafe work conditions. and in the case of the pandemic it becomes even a a starker. you know contradiction, because at the same time, the State continues to label them as essential as heroes, and you know acknowledges the role of domestic workers and making the world run while the crisis of the pandemic

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Kritika Pandey: is striking all across the globe. Right? And so this is the first important point that emerges from the code that we just saw.

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Kritika Pandey: But Miss Maria's code also talks a lot about her. Another important point that I'll be exploring in this paper, which is this betrayal faced by

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Kritika Pandey: this betrayal that is felt by the workers during the pandemic in terms of their employers attitudes towards their their work conditions. And so it's interesting to see how this contradiction speaks to the the division between the or the worker organization's goals of establishing domestic workers as service providers, as distant professionals, while workers continue

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Kritika Pandey: to talk about and to use these strategies of morality and empathy to negotiate their work conditions because of the absence of State protection and see state structures for support against unfair work conditions.

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Kritika Pandey: And so in this. with this context, then, the research question that my paper focuses on is, how do workers engage with organizing goals of legitimizing labor while negotiating specific structural informalities that I am posed by their labor conditions. And so

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Kritika Pandey: in this paper, I try to focus on the space of paid domestic work or organizing as comprising of 2 set of contradictory narratives. The first set of narratives is that of the worker of of the activists and the organizations that are seeking to achieve the goal of legal recognition, and the the other set of narratives is that of the word for members which are

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Kritika Pandey: which are more rooted in their fraud, but intimate relationship with their employers.

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Kritika Pandey: And so and

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Kritika Pandey: the Li so just to briefly talk about the literature that I am speaking to with this question that I have. we know that paid domestic work is has been identified as one of the most devalued and marginalized professions.

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Kritika Pandey: But what's more interesting in terms, in context of this paper is to think about the idea of domestic work as an arena of effective domination. And so, scholars like Ali Ginsburg, stole stolar and Boris and perennials have talked about this idea that we domestic work is distinctive in the sense that the employer employee relationships in this form of work are a conversation

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of denigration and intimacy. And so

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Kritika Pandey: it's a sort of broad, intimate space where the relationship is at the same time also, composed of frames of distrust and fear. But it's also consisting of a frameworks of care, love and support and compassion and dependence.

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Kritika Pandey: And so, as a scholars have labeled this field a sense, an emotional economy that relies on send us. that relies on sensory regime. This field becomes important to be also understood as a combination of physical intimacy and social distance, where

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Kritika Pandey: the hierarchies are not just material, but they are also symbolic as well as effective and psychic. And so

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Kritika Pandey: the the through this paper I aim to. bridge. This the conversation on domestic work as an arena of effective domination with the discussion of domestic evaluation of domestic work, to discuss the ways in which there might be limitations in just thinking about the domestic worker rights in the sense of legal recognition, and how that can also cause issues for movement, sustenance, or

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movements. progress

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Kritika Pandey: with the movements progress.

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Kritika Pandey: So the other. The other important set of writings that talk about organizing and mobilization in paid domestic work. show a rich analysis of, firstly, the historical roots of the merchants of both paid domestic work and the domestic workers movement, and so by showing the roots of this profession as lying in slavery the highlight. They they also highlight the importance of the big domestic worker and movement as

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Kritika Pandey: as a way of organizing intersectionally, which not just tackles the question of work, work.

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Kritika Pandey: of class inequalities, but also of racialized and gender inequalities that come together to produce the system of oppression.

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Kritika Pandey: the other set of scholarly reflections also focuses on discussing transnational domestic worker organizing by looking at the political factors and actors that led to the establishment of this movement. Now, this part is really important to think about, because, it highlights the fact that in the absence of

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Kritika Pandey: in the absence of national protections, and it at the hand in the context of invisibility, invisibleization at the hands of the State. a lot of transnational solidarity networks led to the emergence of a movement that found global spaces to talk about domestic local rights

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Kritika Pandey: And one of the really important things that this part of the scholarship talks about is the establishment of decent work for domestic workers under the Ilo Convention 189.

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Kritika Pandey: And then, finally, there's also a large section of work that talks about the different specific national context and the strategies and social cultural solidarity networks that emerge in the context of these specific specific mobilizations across the globe.

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Kritika Pandey: So it's important to see that a large section of this existing scholarship actually converges on the establishment of the Ilo Convention, 189, which is decent work for domestic workers, and it highlights how domestic worker movement focuses on a combination of a local a, a combination of local activism which is informed by transnational dialogue and workers.

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Kritika Pandey: And it also the scholarship also highlights the importance of social social justice, feminism, as exemplified through this movement, and also talks about how

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Kritika Pandey: local local

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Kritika Pandey: and limitations can be addressed by local invitations can be addressed by using these global frameworks. However, what I will show is that,

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Kritika Pandey: what what this in this paper. What I'll discuss is that there is a contradiction when you think about this one directional organization, which is how local organization learns from global frameworks and then builds a movement about worker solidarity. And so just to quickly go over my methods. this study is based on my

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20 months of ethnographic field work in la with to migrant with our worker organization, Ted, Philip in a worker center and Some parts of it are also

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Kritika Pandey: observed from its ally organization in New York through virtual townhouse that I observed. I also volunteered for educational initiatives and other activities by this organization and also conducted interviews. So these this data informs my findings that I'll share now quickly.

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Kritika Pandey: So my findings are divided into 2 2 sections that basically highlight the contradiction that I'm trying to explore in this paper. So the first set of findings

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Kritika Pandey: are labeled as legitimizing domestic work. So this find, this set of findings basically discusses how the worker organizations try to

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Kritika Pandey: try to overcome the limitations of not being recognized by the State, and still being excluded by labor laws, by by creating this kind of common occupational history, of domestic worker struggle, that not only is informed by the struggles for a racial you know, rationalized struggles in the Us. But also conversations across the world. And so a large part of these organizations establishing this occupational history

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Kritika Pandey: is to also use the Ilu Convention to establish a service model for domestic work, where they argue that

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Kritika Pandey: in order to achieve an equitable workspace, we have to recognize domestic workers as service providers and as a distant professionals. And we have to remove this very very fraught intimacy which causes exploitation for workers

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Kritika Pandey: right? And so their fight fight is focused on legal recognition, and they try to achieve movement sustenance by educating workers and training them and teaching them how to use this language of clients and service providers how to ask for your rights for minimum wage, for time off, etc. And so the structure of the organization organizations is to educate the workers, to follow and to em emulate this service model in their workplace.

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Kritika Pandey: However.

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Kritika Pandey: the second part of my finding shows this contradiction. which item, as negotiating in formality, appeals of morality and empathy, and so in this section. what I what my, what my findings show is that, regardless of the fact that the organizations are, of course, working really hard to provide for workers and to support them in their struggle for better work conditions.

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Kritika Pandey: The framework that is being used by the organization often is not something that the workers end up using when actually negotiating their everyday work conditions. And so, in case of their everyday informality that they're negotiating, they are dependent on their employers, and therefore utilize that

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Kritika Pandey: that precarity and that intimate relationship that they have with their employers, by using negotiations of empathy, by negotiation, by using negotiations and negotiations of belonging, being a part of family, and also appealing to this deep alliance that scholars have talked about earlier, which is a dependence that both employers and employees have on each other in terms of paid domestic work.

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Kritika Pandey: And so What we see here is that in terms of negotiating this informality. Workers kind of contradict the existing narrative that the organizations are trying to use by instead, depending on their personal relationship with their employers, and instead choosing to prioritize that as a strategy, to negotiate in the absence of actual structures of support.

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Kritika Pandey: What I mean to say is that in the absence of any structural support from the State. What happens is that even the organizations are there to support workers, that everyday conditions cannot be easily negotiated by using the contractual language that the organizations are encouraging them to use. And in that case what is used is this intimate relationship with their employers, and this becomes super evident.

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Kritika Pandey: especially in the pandemic, when the fear of job laws, the fear of you know, losing their livelihood made it even more pertinent for them to maintain these important relationships with their employers and utilize them to keep their livelihoods. In fact, during a crisis like the pandemic. And so

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Kritika Pandey: I I. So the so in conclusion, this paper basically highlights how to this paper I hope to highlight how this contradiction between wanting to establish domestic work as a service sector, and all the while depending on morality and empathy and appeals of humanity, and, you know dependence and intimacy to

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Kritika Pandey: negotiate every day in formality, kind of produces, and this and the movement which leads to the legal, the to the aim of the movement to achieve legal recognition. as somewhat of an arrested enterprise.

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Kritika Pandey: Yeah, so I'll stop there. But thank you so much for listening.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: Thank you so much. Critica and interesting. How directly it speaks to might is presentation on paper as well. thank you to everyone. and everyone kept exactly to time. So we have an and and unfortunately, take it to A

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Ugljesa Radulovic: is not with us. So we have around 40 min for a discussion. So I don't know if anybody would like to start off with asking a question to any of the presenters.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: maybe I could. I could break to ask. We could take questions, I think, in rounds of 3, and then have the specific presenters on. So I have a question for David.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: and I wrote it here, I said, David, it appears that domestic workers are predominantly let in

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Ugljesa Radulovic: also, seeing that they all market workers are, understand that. But is this the general case in South Africa. And does this differ from female domestic workers?

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Ugljesa Radulovic: my presumption here is that they're not living in the female domestic workers in. If yes, why is there a difference between the 2?

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Thanks again, there's just one question here in the audience.

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My apologies

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for us.

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or I don't know if I mentioned myself. We are the numbers that I made right because they have permit to work in the United States, because I think that's a really, really important. And I myself have experience. And I have I really there working

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as domestic workers? But they are. They have no documents. So it's quite different to the situation we are talking about. So that's why I'm asking. And also you have a question for a Mexico.

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I don't. I can see her name right now. My thing, yeah, exactly. I don't know if my they said it, because I can see her.

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Yes, I'm here

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most expensive. And most of these universities in Mexico. And what was your experience.

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your classmates? Did you? Could you an hour that the Juris way, as any kind of a stigma for your classmates

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or your teachers when you call to the story, and what you told the story of your comedy, and I was wondering if you could elaborate on your experience.

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You could tell someone, thank you.

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okay, there's another question in the in the video.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: Okay? So I think that will make it. 3. Then.

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thank you. My history is directed to David.

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What they interesting?

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Yeah. The issue of domestic wake

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in that school. but not in my.

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What is it that. Jacob?

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It's just like

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what I

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I made any special zones or areas?

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a white city to take up the

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optimistic way by the

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I can do this again. Those are 3 questions.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: okay, okay. Do you want me to go first? Or should we go first with the online. David, yes, could you? yes, could we? Could we go? Could you go first? But critic, a struggle to here? And as it are the last question. So if we could, if we could just just just get the summary or a gist of it. Sorry.

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Okay. So the last question was, basically, are there any zones in in The household that to me sick mail domestic work is all maybe excluded from or included. And then this thing about international identity, but about a South African main, who or domestic workers. So all all the South African menu of the Mexico? Because it's a, it's not just for the 2 questions.

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Okay, okay, David, could you answer first and then the online presenters? Please, yeah, thanks for all the questions. We also for the questions for the other presenters. I I find them very useful. So, yeah, okay, your question on this history of domestic work, basically. And that's what it points to is, I mean, if you look at a history of domestic work, it it dates back to the settlers and the the

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The Dutch people came to South Africa many, many years ago, and what I did is they bought with them. local women working class women at work, but then soon afterwards they will marry some of the other settlers or S, and there was a

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a need for other domestic workers, and you will see that. And they employed self-employing a local cause of women as the basic workers. But the the the push, for now the basic work has happened. When when the gold was discovered in Johannesburg and they were a male domestic workers in NATO region, originally employed, but they were employed not just as domestic workers like. I said they do a range of

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tasks, and they they mainly do cleaning, but also outside working in those days, I mean, technology. Wasn't that advanced and domestic work was really a hard job. It's still a whole job, but that those times. It was really without any technology electricity, you know. So I think in that those times you need it.

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strong main. And that's what you saw in the literature in Zambia and Tanzania is that people want?

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domestic workers who can move furniture around. You can be strong, and and I don't say that women are not strong, but I think there is a need for in those times, for for really strong body. But then, as as

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the gold was discovered in the 18 eighties. In Jerusalem there was a massive increase of of migration fema So in white settlers moving to Job because there was a massive need in demand for domestic work. But then they started employing mal domestic workers because it was affordable. It's it's available. And also, and they can do a range of tasks. But then, as the mining sector became more developed

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that pushed the apartheid policies in the colonial policies, pushed the the black Main into the mining as doing manually, but it a hard lab, and there was a a gap opening in the households of of this white settlers, and then that sort of employing local women who came from, you know, the rural areas.

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But the history of South Africa and the Mexico is very much linked to the apartheid policies. We they, you know, black women didn't have a lot of opportunities except domestic work. I mean, I can do 6 work, and so I'll call and sort of be self employed. But but this thing about domestic work was the only sort of option available, and that's why you see the profile of the basic work. Even with these agencies, it's

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so black women who dominate the sector marginalized backgrounds and so on. So that's in a sense. you know, if if you look at the history of the music, you see that this this transition between what woman black woman then black Main, and then to of. Now the the black African woman has the basic

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 to go to the second question. Yes, it's very interesting. This part of our Co. Society I'm in South Africa is also a if you think about it, and The missing book still remains very much gendered, and all that is from this literature that in this that shares with the increase of husbands doing more. Okay, work, a more outline. But it's still the bulk of

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domestic work is carried by the women, the mothers, or the sisters, or the daughters of the household. So the gender division is not really changing where it is changing is the migrant character.

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Those people are interviewed, or all migrants from a lawyer in Zimbabwe, and they

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are not ashamed to do domestic work in another country. None of them said that they know any local main doing domestic work because they're shamed. Attached to being a domestic work at its typical, a female job

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and a black African. So so it is. This whole character of domestic work comes up as a you know how to do it in someone else's household in another country, and I think in in mighty's discussion as well. I think

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I picked up shame. They, in your presentation is shame that with order clean in another country, for from Mexico, for from the university to where you from people shouldn't necessarily know about it, because it's shamed attached to domestic work. And it's the same here in in this study that may not do the domestic work. But in another country people don't necessarily know about it.

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And then, in terms of the zones like, I said in just the one participants say that he's not touching any of the laundry, you know, because he's women in the household, and he's not doing any of the laundry matters. Luckily this family is quite affluent, so they can afford to employ another to basically a female to Mexico. Now you find in this there are lots of articles on Muslim domestic workers and Muslim families. It is a lot of

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zones that are untouchable, and and the basic work is regardless of the agenda should not go into the sacred places of the household, and so on. So they all zones with people or domestic. We shouldn't go. It's a very poor habit, 7 within the house, and if you think about it. The basic work is available. I would.

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job, you know. It's a very intimate job. You're cleaning toilet. You're making beach, you you part of the family in many ways where you are involved with the family conflict and the quarrels, and you take in size and people trust you with your you know, with the family matters, and and such a very intimate space. So they all differently zones where people are not comfortable with the domestic, because in this case my domestic work is the one that city is not is not touching with the laundry. So yeah.

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thanks, everyone.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: Thank you, David.

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Ugljesa Radulovic:  I think there was a question for my today about

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Ugljesa Radulovic: going to an affluent university.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: and how her

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Ugljesa Radulovic: he is.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: And teachers then reacted. I I did. You address that in your presentation I believe that you had that you didn't discuss it with what you wanted to address it. Yeah.

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Mayte Vazquez: yes, so during the whole process of writing my thesis, I truly only shared with my family. of course.

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Mayte Vazquez: and my teachers and the classmates that I had to, because I was sharing a class with them.

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Mayte Vazquez: And you know my teachers are anthropologist, so I think it would be like very severe, and it would be very problematic if they would have a stigmatized me. I definitely would have done something about it.

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Mayte Vazquez: because that would have been very problematic, specially coming from, you know, anthropology professors.

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Mayte Vazquez: And

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Mayte Vazquez: yeah, to be honest, I just didn't share with anyone that I didn't have to.

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Mayte Vazquez: It's until now, like a year after I've

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Mayte Vazquez: return my basis, and that I want that an award for it that I can talk about it openly without shame.

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Mayte Vazquez: And I do remember, I share it in another class with a teacher who is not an anthropologist, and we bothered classmates that were an anthropologist.

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Mayte Vazquez: But I shared in a different context. It was a documentary class, so I wrote like a very poetic piece about it.

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Mayte Vazquez: but even when I share it I honestly feel like crying and just like logging off the class, and

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Mayte Vazquez: I didn't want to hear what anyone had to say about it.

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Mayte Vazquez:  And I don't think people actually registered it. Or maybe it wasn't an online class. So maybe no one was paying attention. but no one really said anything. And they focus more on, like

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Mayte Vazquez: the lyrical part of what I said, and how like beautiful it sounded.

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Mayte Vazquez: But yes, to be completely honest, I I didn't share with with people that I didn't have to, and it is until now that I openly talk about it.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: Thank you.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: And I believe that we've addressed all 3 questions.  I missed something. I don't think I have

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Ugljesa Radulovic: to. David. Is there anyone else there in the venue that has a question.

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There was another question for

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Did you get that question?

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Kritika Pandey: I I think I gathered it.

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Kritika Pandey: It was were they asking about like immigration status, and how that connects to people's work experiences. Is that?

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Thank you.

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Kritika Pandey: Yeah, thank you for that question. That's such an interesting and important question to us, especially in the context of the Us. and so in Los Angeles, like a large section of the workers that I interviewed had

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Kritika Pandey: permits to work already because they had been in the Us. For a long time, and they had their this worker organization that they were working with as members that had supported them in getting those permits, but some of them were undocumented. And so

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Kritika Pandey: definitely, I think that the level of negotiation that you can have, and the level of

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Kritika Pandey: like the way the way of resisting your work and like resisting against difficult work conditions, changes based on your immigration status. So I think that for workers that are undocumented the resistance to any kind of

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Kritika Pandey: unfair labor practice is really hard, and, in fact. more often than not. They depend on these organizations to support them if it gets too bad, but otherwise there is a sense of acceptance of

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Kritika Pandey: the fact that this work is supposed to be hard and unfair. But this is something that is a means to an end. And so they kind of try to think about it like that, and just continue to work. But especially during the pandemic, it became even worse for undocumented workers. even though in California as one of the States, that is more

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Kritika Pandey: you know, friendly, or rather has more policies to support undocumented individuals in the Us. They still had a lot to struggle with. but definitely

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Kritika Pandey: for workers that have more of you know, they have a work permit, and there they have their permanent residency, etc. They become more active in the movement. But I will say that, based in the findings that I have and the interviews that I took. I think that there is a sense of understanding of this work as really special, which helps the workers to kind of

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Kritika Pandey: go through some hard conditions in their workplace which is not necessarily just limited to undocumented workers or workers with a, you know, immigrant workers. I think there's this understanding that this work is special, which also helps them kind of

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Kritika Pandey:  explain the fact that their work is full of dignity, and they're not, you know, subordinate to anyone, and they're doing this work of care and love which makes everything else work. And so I think that even in the even for people who have more security in terms of immigration, etc. They do talk about that. What? Their work is, something that is special, which is why they hope that their employers will also see it as such and see how it's different, because it is basically

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Kritika Pandey: providing care and support to the household of their employers. And you know it's more than just an exchange of labor for most workers. So I hope that answers your question. But thank you so much

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so. And can I ask you.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: Yes, Prof. Kamila.

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thank you very much. I'm going to.

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And it's more for curiosity question, because I'm not an expert in this area. So I'm just always curious about the use of concepts. And a lot of this change in the

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and domestic work is historically even the kinds of work they do 50 years ago, and they had different expectations.

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the past context.

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So you see, what is it? Debate on conceptualizations of domestic workers and the concepts of the occupational

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categories we should be referring to. That's just about the labels we use, because if we think in terms of some of the things that bigger the speakers are referred to like a mightyest sense of stigmatization might be different if there was a different conceptualization of domestic worker, and the second thing would be about labour compliance.

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 in the South African context, I I get the impression that I might be completely wrong, that there is not consistent label compliance

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with respect to domestic workers.

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So, and how was this disrupted by Covid because we saw massive retrenchments

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in the current period?

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I would imagine that the rules are broken?

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Or is there an attempt to resuscitate and firm up regulations in the interest of work and rights? Now? Or why don't we sing? Because

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what what can we say about the with the employers I'm talking about?

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And I don't even know you talk about a difference between the corporate sector that employs domestic workers and households.

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But I would imagine that the household level there is not great neighborhood glance, and maybe just some coverage one. And thanks.

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it's for who? Sorry? Prof. We couldn't hear you? The question is for

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David.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: David.

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David. you you talked about the male domestic workers that you've interviewed that major league in Fire Saturdays and Female police new workers, even though most of them are migrants.

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So

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So that has to do, if that particularly has to do with basics.

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Okay.

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okay, okay,

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Ugljesa Radulovic: And we have one more.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: I think we have. That's 3 questions. But from 2 people, maybe we can take one more question.

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3.

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I have a question for for make my day made sorry. I found your your type of very interesting especially this different generations that that become domestic workers and also involves optimistic will pay the basic work. And I think that's something that you see in many societies where

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it's linked to, you know, different generations within a family. And now in South Africa that is the case, especially during the apartheid way, there was limited opportunities for women to become anything else. Black women like African woman anything else but that they have to become at the basic work. And you see that within the family no different generations. Now my question is, did you

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find any difference between the different generations in terms of that experience is optimistic work? you know, some. Some of the generations date back quite some time with different technology, different labor laws, legislation, and so on. So I expect that the the experience might be a little bit different in terms of of that. But also yeah. And what? What is your what? You go back to the mes.

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because it's also this question about trajectory inside and outside of the music, we're going back to domestic work in finding another type of employment as a way to or whatever, and then going back to me as as you. There's a need for for income, and it's very sort of a temporary income jobs that you you might find. So this thing about moving between jobs

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and going back to domestic work in my study, you know that the participants say they are quite satisfied with with being domestic workers.

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for now

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I did get the sense that you know that, for now is emphasized, you know, until I find something else, you know. So that's the whole question. The basic look seems always to be a stepping starting towards something else and something, Beta. And sometimes people don't find something they did. I go back to domestic work as as a you know, as a job. So yeah, that's my question.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: Okay, if we could have the the presenters answer the questions. If you could start with Bianca.

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Ugljesa Radulovic:  I think they would. There are 2 questions.

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Bianca Tame: Okay? So I struggled to hear a little bit. But I think I got the gist of the first 2 questions. This issue about concepts and working with concepts in relation to stigma. This is a tricky one, because sometimes we use the language that emerges from the data. So in in my field work

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Bianca Tame: domestic workers kept referring to themselves as I. I work with the agent or the agency. And there's a element of professional identity and the recognition of employment rights. Yeah, and and and I think, for me, at least in terms of understanding. They struggle, and they journey through the employ the the domestic sector. It's important to recognize what

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Bianca Tame: those experiences are and how they identifying themselves in relation to the dire situation of informality in the domestic sector, which is very much real, very much alive and deeply problematic. But there's a second element here that I haven't quite grappled with, and I'm I'm I don't know how to do it, but it's also about who the employees are.

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Bianca Tame: and it relates in some ways to the second part of the question around labor, regulatory labor compliance. at least through the agencies. There is a growing black middle class in South Africa

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Bianca Tame: and researchers are beginning to explore that area in detail.

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Bianca Tame: but in terms of my sample the employees were primarily white South Africa and

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Bianca Tame: citizens

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Bianca Tame: and if you focus on the experiences of domestic workers, and how they move through the domestic sector because of their migrant status. Remember, some of them are coming in, and they don't have asylum status. They don't have what permits. And they journeys actually begin in very ways, through rogue agencies and through black employers

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Bianca Tame: of different racial identities. and and they experience deplorable conditions with them. So in terms of the language of how they identify, they status and how they want to feel recognized as professional domestic workers, not just domestic workers, but professional domestic work is because it's attached to their rights.

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Bianca Tame: you'll find that there's that underlying tension about who they don't want to work for and who they want to work for. And again, the agencies then become very important, probably problematic, because where they are located, but there is a they remains, a geographic architecture to how our suburbs are designed, and where our middle and lower middle income ha! Ha! Hustles are, and what the racial categories of those individuals might be as employers.

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Bianca Tame: And so, if you look at it from that angle, I I I hear you

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Bianca Tame: point about. You know the concepts that we are working with. But I would say that in this sense, yeah, I think it's it's

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Bianca Tame: it would be dangerous for me to say that it comes without stigma, and it would be dangerous for me to say that These migrant domestic workers are going home and sharing they use about what kind of work they are doing and domestic work, and that came out very clear, and David's work.

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Bianca Tame: But what I do know, and what I'm really fascinated in is then the informality of how migrant domestic workers are organizing because they are not organizing through trade unions. They are all right organizing through the transnational church spaces, and in that collective space they know what they are doing. They know who they are, and it's quite fascinating when you enter these different sites.

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That they will say we are all domestic workers, but they are not all

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Bianca Tame: experiencing domestic work the same way, and they have these aspirations to be recognized as a professional domestic worker. So obviously, I've located it in a very niche area of South Africa's domestic sector, and and but but I'm very aware that it's it's

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Bianca Tame: it. It's part of the history and the history in in South Africa's domestic sector, and if we lose sight of that, then we lose sight of all the complexities. And this idea of there is an underbelly in South Africa's domestic sector. The second question we related to COVID-19, and how it might have disrupted

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Bianca Tame: labor compliance. That's a very interesting question. I don't have a answer the specifically to that But what I

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Bianca Tame: I I think we we are beginning to unravel some of those encounters, and what happened to migrant domestic work is South African domestic workers where employees. And and remember, again, we need to think about this intimate space. import employees panicked.

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Bianca Tame: They panicked employment contracts suddenly went out the window. I don't know how it happens in the spaces where work is formally organized or recognized as formal domestic work, but what we do know from the different. Again, it's about levels of experience. We had a hard lockdown which most countries had where domestic workers were not allowed to work.

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Bianca Tame: and they were thrown out. Some of them were kept in, even though they were not supposed to be working as domestic workers. children were moved into households, so that the the employer had access to the domestic work, or on condition that, you know, they recognize that the mother needs to be with their children. So they are lots of interesting dynamics that are emerging. And I think.

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Bianca Tame: for the based on what trade unions were

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Bianca Tame: observing, and what other researchers have observed. I think that the panic, because of intimacy and health

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Bianca Tame: completely, I I I think, based on what I've read and what I've seen. it it unraveled in the most destructive way, and I don't know how that plays out in the post covid era, and our households are actually navigating that space currently. But it would be very interesting to zoom in on that and understand the politics of the household

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Bianca Tame: before Covid and differently after Covid, and how it's also affecting and influencing the choices employees make in terms of whether they want to live in domestic worker. Remember this control elements there, there's

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Bianca Tame: benefits there because you have somebody almost all the time available to serve your needs. compared to live out arrangements and and and the geography of South Africa is such that many of our South African domestic workers, including our migrant domestic workers, are living in

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Bianca Tame: good graphic spaces that are very far from these niche middle upper middle class suburbs. So traveling and transport, and how that affected the the the recognition of their loved realities, and they

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Bianca Tame: right to employment right? They right to social measures completely unraveled. And maybe my last point in relation to that, I think one of the lessons that we learned because of Covid is that because in in formalities it's it's it's

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Bianca Tame: it's it's such a terrible situation. It's it's so deeply ingrained in our society. But because of this day during Covid, we realized that so many employers had not registered the domestic work of for the Unemployment Insurance Fund, and that they just signals even it it. It signals the extent to which domestic workers employment rights will not recognize. I'll end on that, but I'm happy to pick up

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Bianca Tame: if if there any gaps in my answers. Thanks.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: Thank you, Bianca. Could we get mighty to answer the question from David. with one facing limited opportunities. and is there a difference between the generations?

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Mayte Vazquez: And is the mystic with just a stepping stone. Yes, actually, I would like to add more to the previous question. That did I experience the stigma? no, not with the people that I

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Mayte Vazquez: share it with. However, when other people who were not from my school or my academic circle would ask me, What are you writing your thesis on, I would just say domestic work, and they would always answer, Oh, you should talk to mine! You should interview mine with this very like possession expression that would make me very upset, and I didn't know what to answer after that.

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Mayte Vazquez: and I would also hear my other friends outside my academic circle talk about the domestic workers that they hired, and they would talk about their like exploitative practices, the negative stereotypes they had about them.

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Mayte Vazquez: and it was very uncomfortable always.

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Mayte Vazquez: because I always said, Oh, that was me for a little while I was my family, so it was very uncomfortable, and that's also part of the reason why I didn't share it with people that I didn't have to

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Mayte Vazquez:  And then, on the different experiences based on age, I definitely think that they were different. However, unfortunately, when I wrote my faces, my grandma was already dead, so I really couldn't talk to her, and I could only build her story based on what my mom and her sisters told me.

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Mayte Vazquez: However, I do know that my grandma was very ashamed of her background, as my mom would always say, she was even poorer than us. My mom said we were very poor, but then my mom was even poorer.

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Mayte Vazquez: and then also something that I think is very important to recognize, and that I wish that I could explore more is that she came from Wahaga, which is like a mostly indigenous state in Mexico, and she didn't like to talk about it. She always she, my grandma, and my mom and her sisters would would say, oh, we're from Puebla, and that's our identity, especially the city of Cuva, like recognizing themselves as city people.

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Mayte Vazquez: I'm guessing that my grandma's experience in domestic work coming from a poor background, and I don't know what her

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Mayte Vazquez: the ethnic background was

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Mayte Vazquez: was probably like more exploitative and more precarious more violent than what my mom and her sister's experience. And perhaps that's why she didn't like to talk about it, because it was painful to remember it.

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Mayte Vazquez: also, very important is that none of my my mom and her 2 other sisters.

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Mayte Vazquez: we never went back to domestic work, and they definitely saw it as

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Mayte Vazquez: something temporary to get something better, something that would help them build their career, and something that they are grateful for. However, the their older sister, the one that couldn't continue her studies. She stopped being at the

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Mayte Vazquez: some

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Mayte Vazquez: and

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Mayte Vazquez: workers. One she got, however, because I need more, she sorry

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Ugljesa Radulovic: it it appears we've we've lost. it.

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can you? Can you? Can you hear on your side, David? No.

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that's a pretty is something with. So yeah, so just too bad enough, I think.

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yeah. So it just to on something else. Question quickly, it's definitely linked to sex. when you think about better payment because female domestic workers are not just cleaners. They're also K workers, right? And they look after children and elderly. And and my participants said that I work outside in the garden. That's why they pay me better. But none of them are doing Kay work. You know. They're cleaning. They not cleaners.

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Those are outside cleaners. If you think of female domestic workers like cable, because most of them okay, because cooks. And then the cleaners. So it doesn't justify that they are paid more. I think it's just about it's sakes, but also, perhaps link to the employers

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and status of being able to

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have a male domestic work instead of a female. That's a good day, that's sort of it's a link to the colonial past, and being a status enhancement of having a male domestic will instead of a female. And it's it's not, I mean, if you have a family of 4, 5, 6 people in the household.

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it's still not enough, you know.

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Yeah. So that is, that's my quick answer to that.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: Okay, I think we are out of time, isn't it? We? We've got 7. We've got 7 min. So I I see that Prof. Mariam had a had a question. Do we have? And is there anyone in in the audience there? It was one online question. And anyone, just a very 2 very brief questions. Maybe.

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Yeah. So they none in the in the audience who want to ask any questions. So okay, proof of Marion, do you have a question?

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Professor Mariam Seedat-Khan CCS: yes, I did have a question. I thank you for all the presentations. They've been absolutely great.

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Professor Mariam Seedat-Khan CCS:  My question was, I mean, and and it's to to all of you that have presented papers. you know it.

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Professor Mariam Seedat-Khan CCS: You're all doing such interesting research. So one question is around the lockdown and

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Professor Mariam Seedat-Khan CCS: the

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Professor Mariam Seedat-Khan CCS: what while?

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Professor Mariam Seedat-Khan CCS: for for you know the way I understand it. People were enslaved during these kind of periods, especially living positions. But what happened to that sector?

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Professor Mariam Seedat-Khan CCS: that were.

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Professor Mariam Seedat-Khan CCS: you know, they they job they because of poor registration. They lost their jobs.

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Professor Mariam Seedat-Khan CCS: What were the implications for them? Has anyone done any particular studies on that? And I I'd love to hear more about this ownership, and this notion of family like you got to speak to mine, and you know so and so is like family. They are my family, but really, they're not your family, because, there's a clear distinction.

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Professor Mariam Seedat-Khan CCS: So I I just like to hear your thoughts on that. Thank you very much for your contributions.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: Thank you. Bro. If I don't know who would like to to to answer that question.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: I suspect David.

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Yeah. So I from my side. I think that I would definitely have an impact on this sector. And you see, there's a massive drop in the number of employed domestic workers, free and post-covid in South Africa. You see that you know, Preca. But it was almost a million. Now it's 800,000 around there, although these numbers are never quite specific enough.

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It does tell you something happened in the past 2, 3 years. They

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can, and the other reasons as well. like, you know, Covid meant that people lost their own jobs so they can't afford luxury, such as employing a domestic work, or they found that you know, maybe it's not that difficult to to do your own household work right? So there's lots of Lots of reasons why. there's a job in in employed to mystic workers.

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So from the South African case. I think that is what I observed over the past 2, 3 years.

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Kritika Pandey: I can just add to that a little bit, because, like in the Us. Strangely, the care work needs went up during the pandemic. And so the care work

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Kritika Pandey: industry actually became even more active during the pandemic, and many workers actually were turned from, you know, like hourly workers or workers that were working during the day and then going back home at night they were turned into 11 workers at the insistence of their employers to protect against. You know them coming and going, and you know it.

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Kritika Pandey: possibly bringing Covid into their homes. But like so, there was this coercion actually to become live in workers in the Us.

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Kritika Pandey: even for workers that for full time, but not live in And so I think, in the Us. Strangely, because the care, work, industry provides so much elderly support and childcare support. and there are not enough state resources or public sort of flex resources for this kind of care in the Us. Since everything so privatized.

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Kritika Pandey: I think that the care work industry became even more active during the pandemic, which is why there was a very disproportionate impact of the pandemic on this industry, and there were lots of lives lost of migrant workers in the course of the pandemic. But I think that it's quite the opposite in the Us. Where the can work. Industry actually became even more, you know, active during the pandemic.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: Thank you. we're left with 3 min. So I don't know if David, if you would like to take that, what you need to to to have a final wrapping up statement. And then I'll say, thanks to everyone.

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Yeah, I I just want to say, thank you very much for all the speakers, and thank you for accepting my invitation to speak today. A nice different time zones, and I's very early at some in some countries. Now you can go back to sleep now. But thank you very much for for speaking on this important issue of domestic work. As we all know, the basic work is one

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of the oldest of communications, but also one of the most vulnerable occupations, and today's session clearly shows that it's still stigmatized. It's still vulnerable. It's still ostracized in in society, and we need to do more to to keep up with the good work, and to keep up with the value of domestic work. So I want to thank all of you very much for for your words and sharing your knowledge in a different context. So thank you very much, and you will here soon for me. Maybe you know we can organize a seminar game or some roundtable discussion or something, because it's very interesting. It's just a start of something bigger and better. Thank you very much.

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Ugljesa Radulovic: and also thank you to David for organizing the session, and for not only for your presentation, but for bringing these brilliant speakers, and for stimulating very good discussion. Thank you. To David and all of the speakers, and everyone present, both physically and online.

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Hmm, thank you very much.

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Kritika Pandey: Okay, thank you very much. Everybody. All right. Have a good day.