When hiring a maid, cook, driver or nanny for the first time, people often ask their friends or family members for suggestions on salaries to be paid, for services that a household cannot get by a day without. However, in most cases the wages paid are nowhere near the wages of 鈧10,483 for eight hours of work, a month.
The over 11 lakh domestic workers in the State are mainly located in Hyderabad and other major urban centres and are covered under the Telangana Labour Department鈥檚 notification on total wages. The GO on the minimum wages was issued in November 2011 in the undivided Andhra Pradesh.
The National Platform of Domestic Workers and Gruha Karmikula [Domestic Workers] Union Telangana State recently submitted suggestions for a draft Bill on uniform wages, regulation of work hours, security and other aspects, to the Telangana Labour department recently.
The draft Bill suggests measures to provide rights to domestic workers, fix minimum rate of wages, regulate work hours, paid leaves, a board to register their complaints, registration of domestic workers and placement agencies, penalties and other aspects.
The draft Bill was prepared by a team from the Centre for Constitutional Law, Policy and Good Governance, NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad. The team which worked on it included N. Vasanthi, Aymen Mohammad, Akhil Surya, Avantika Kalra, Shrugal Borkar, Faculty and students of NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad.
Minimum wages
It suggests that the State government shall fix the minimum rate of wages payable to domestic workers on the basis of the needs, including minimum food intake, housing, children鈥檚 education, and others.
As there are various forms of domestic work, it suggests the wages have to be fixed accordingly. According to the Bill, the minimum rate of wages should be fixed by the hour or day or month, and for urban and rural areas. The minimum wages can be reviewed at time intervals not exceeding five years.
鈥淲here an employer fails to comply with the provisions of this Act, he shall be punished with fine which shall not be less than two months wages of a domestic worker in accordance with the prevailing minimum rate of wages,鈥 the draft Bill proposes under section 鈥極ffences and Penalties鈥.
District board
It also suggests the constitution of a district board which shall provide a helpline number for domestic workers for registering instances of contraventions of the law, provide for registration of complaints made both in writing or orally.