Posted: May 13th, 2021

1000 Words Essay Labour Econ

Domestic Workers Bill of Rights

Introduction
U.S Representative Pramila Jaypal and U.S Senator Kamala D. Harris proposed the Domestic Workers Bill of Right Acts, which is considered to be the first national legislation that provides protection and rights to millions of domestic workers in the U.S (Harris and Jayapal 2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers). The policy mainly constitutes to protect the domestic workers, i.e., nannies, maids, etc. against their workplace rights. This includes protection against a safe and healthy work environment, paid overtime, and freedom from discrimination and harassment from their workplace. This activity tends to provide protections for written contracts, retirement benefits and affordable healthcare, sexual harassment, workforce training, and fair scheduling to achieve their unique workplace challenges. Additionally, the “know your rights” information is also advanced through this act (Harris and Jayapal, 2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers).
Healthy Families Act
The domestic workers include nannies, home cleaners and home care workers, which are among the lowest-paid workers in the U.S. Mostly, these workers earn $10/h, and only 12% of these workers receive the health benefits. These workers mainly encounter low job security, variable hours and unstable schedules. These issues are for the workers themselves and their employers as they face a shortage of these types of workers caused by their unbearable work conditions (Campbell, 2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers).
This bill’s traits include workplace rights and domestic workers’ protection, including freedom, safety, healthy work conditions, and paid overtime. Most of the domestic work sector workers are not included in the minimum wage and work hour rights, and this act provides the protection of fair compensation and overtime pay. In this act, the workers will also be allowed Paid Sick days, which is initially not included in their current work scenario. Protection against harassment and discrimination will also be provided through this act as it promotes civil rights protection. The bill will also include providing the required meal and rest breaks to work with higher productivity. Other protections include protection for line-in workers to relieve them from finding a new home in case of termination and safety and health grants for the domestic workers (Campbell, 2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers).
The bill’s purpose is to create new protections and rights to solve domestic workers’ unique issues, including fair scheduling, retirement benefits, health care, written agreements, sexual harassment, and training. The fair scheduling is instead of protecting against the work hours and accommodating the worker’s personal events. The workers in this field are mostly women, so they face sexual harassment from their employers, and this bill will provide these workers for reporting & legal cases against these harassers. The workers will also be provided with the health care benefits and retirement benefits as they are excluded from the country’s ordinary worker and are not accessed with such facilities (Campbell, 2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers).
Along with providing rights, the bill will also provide a platform for domestic workers to implement their rights and protection. These platforms will include a hotline and a task force which will execute and implement these rights. This will allow the workers to report any violation of their rights directly to the state, unlike the history (Stromme and Madlan, 2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers).
Reasons for proposing this act
The domestic work sector is essential to our society because these tend to take care of our loved ones, ageing parents, people with disabilities, and children. The domestic work sector as a whole is at a high growth pace. It already involves 2.5M workers force working all across America. However, there is a considerable gender gap within this sector, as 90% of the workers are women. The central portion of these is women of colour, i.e., belonging to different ethnicities and immigrants. This sector mainly includes the house cleaners, house workers, and nannies that cater to the nation’s families and are often working within homes. The rapid growth in the population’s ageing has increased domestic workers’ demand, which is why it has become of the fastest-growing occupation all over America. The care jobs possess the potential to become the fastest-growing by Y2026 (Harris and Jayapal, 2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers).
In the coming years, only one industry other than domestic work will grow faster and provide more jobs, renewable energy. The high growth in the future will be due to two reasons: Firstly, the generation of baby boomers is ageing, and the families are expected to hire domestic workers for their aides. Secondly, the Affordable Care Act provides the cost of home care services for low-income people (Stromme and Madlan, 2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers).
Issues faced by domestic workers
In the USA, being a domestic worker means tolerating abuse and poverty. This type of work, i.e., caring, is carried out in closed doors and is merely a personal work that attributes it to be a hidden work in which the workplaces are mostly unregulated and unregistered. The research indicates that the domestic workers are mostly paid an $11/hour wage; however, in most cases, the wage is less than this because of workers’ exploitation due to them being immigrants or belonging to different ethnicities. These workers have none or minimal medical benefits due to the sector being unregulated. The domestic work sector is exploited because they have very little access to the protections of their rights, causing them to fear reporting any abuse in fear of retaliation (Campbell, 2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers).
Domestic workers have always been excluded from labour protections in the Labor laws, especially women of colour. This workforce majorly consists of immigrants and women of colour, which caused them to face exclusion from basic labour protection extracted from slavery (Campbell 2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers). The societal narrative for these workers in people’s minds is that these workers do not do “real” work. Domestic workers are always excluded from the safety laws, health laws and minimum wage laws due to their lack of importance in the state and society’s minds. Another primary reason for this type of exclusion from basic laws is the unregulated market caused by immigrants and women of colour’s involvement. This also excludes domestic workers from harassment laws and anti-discrimination laws due to their traditional workforce nature.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Domestic worker Bill of Rights is a crucial step forward for the domestic workers and the betterment of the economy. It provides a huge opportunity to improve the lives and work of millions of domestic workers. It will also allow the opportunity to move the country forward in terms of the right labour economics and improve the labour market condition.

References
Campbell, Alexia Fernández. 2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers. “Kamala Harris just introduced a bill to give housekeepers overtime pay and meal breaks.” VOX. July 15. Accessed Sept 26, 2020. https://www.vox.com/2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers/7/15/20694610/kamala-harris-domestic-workers-bill-of-rights-act.
D. Harris, Kamala, and Pramila Jayapal. 2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers. “Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.” KAMALA D. HARRIS U.S. Senator for California. July 15. https://www.harris.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/ONE%20PAGER%20National%20Domestic%20Workers%20Bill%20of%20Rights.pdf.
Harris, Kamala, and Pramila Jayapal. 2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers. Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. July 15. Accessed Sept 27, 2020. https://www.harris.senate.gov/news/press-releases/harris-jayapal-announce-domestic-workers-bill-of-rights#:~:text=The%20Domestic%20Workers%20Bill%20of%20Rights%20Act%20is%20the%20first,held%20problems%20within%20this%20sector.
Stromme, Adam, and David Madlan. 2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers. “A New ‘Bill of Rights’ for Domestic Workers Will Let Them Finally Bargain Collectively.” Fortune. July 19. Accessed Sept 27, 2020. https://fortune.com/2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers/07/19/domestic-workers-bill-of-rights/.

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