Unhelpful zeal

There has been legitimate exasperation for long at the way entrenchedunionised workers have cornered benefits to the detriment of the 90 per cent workers in the unorganised sector. The Maharashtra government now appears to have taken a bold step to redress the matter for domestic help. The state has become the first to enforce a code of conduct that involves benefits to domestic help such as bonus, leave travel allowance and medical reimbursement. A good step or bad? A fine sentiment, let us say, but not well executed. Nobody with an iota of decency will argue that these workers do not need protection. The question can only be, what sort? Not this sort. The code betrays a tendency to use private employers of one or two people in the same way as corporate employers with large workforces and resources to match. The argument is not that these are not good intentions, but that they will not work and may do some harm.

Not all the ideas are bad. There is some good in requiring employers to give domestic workers a day off every week if they want it. It is also a good idea to require employers to give their help annual leave. But bonuses, leave travel allowances and medical reimbursement? The idea at all of having domestic help is a feudal one, and the way in which the relationship works is correspondingly feudal. The best intentions of governments cannot change that. It is like trying to wish the caste system away. The traditionally feudal relationship between domestic employers and workers already is changing in the wake of profound social change and modernisation. Growing economic opportunities for workers are increasing their bargaining powers. The market is delivering. This is buttressed by voluntary agencies that supply the help in several cities and sign contracts with employers on their behalf. It is hard to see how the government can help except by providing protection against rank abuse.

If a legalistic format is imposed, employers will promptly take a legalistic view of things too. If a domestic employer is determined not to spend, say, more than Rs 1,000 a month on his help, he or she will find a way of doing this within this code. To cover the benefits that he is now obliged to give, he can easily cut corners elsewhere, such as refusing to let the help live and eat in the house. These are not insubstantial perks. The reason why so many domestic workers agree to work for very low pay is for free housing or food. The code could encourage employers not to provide accommodation and to convert their live-in domestic workers into part-time ones. This could lower, not raise the living standards of these workers. It is by no means sure that most domestic help would prefer such an arrangement. It does seem rather odd that a government should concern itself with things like forcing domestic employers to provide leave travel allowance in a country where domestic help are often found to suffer from aslave-like existence and outright physical abuse. Governments would do well to focus their energies on preventing these things, by severely punishing those who indulge in such abuse. They could make a start by making an example of the ministers who have been found merrily torturing their help.