Latin American Domestic Workers in London Nicole Busch and Rosie Cox Birkbeck, University of London

Latin American workers in London – structure of talk 1990s – growth of paid domestic employment in UK Post 2004 – re-imagining of Latin Americans as the new Europeans Being from a ‘good’ family The benefits of global inequalities Visa categories and earning potential Conclusions

Domestic work in the UK Cleaner – a part-time, live out worker who cleans a number of homes each day or each week. Nanny – the main task of a nanny is to provide childcare for young children. They can live in or out and may be part time or full time. Au pair – meaning ‘as an equal’ – an au pair is meant to be a young foreign worker who lives with a family and does a small amount of housework and childcare as part of a cultural exchange. Now used as a way to access very cheap domestic workers.

Racialization of Latin American domestic workers in the 1990s Period of rapid growth in domestic employment in UK Latin American disadvantaged in labour market. Not seen as appropriate for childcare or cleaning. Established groups such as Spanish, Portuguese and Filipinas favoured for best jobs. ‘British’ for childcare (including NZ and Australia).

The ‘New Europeans’ 2000s movement of middle class, highly educated women into domestic work world wide. UK opens border to new EU members (A8) to supply cheap labour. Created demand for workers, including domestic workers Au pair visa abolished 2008 Latin Americans favoured in comparison to Eastern Europeans.

Being from a ‘good’ family ‘So then I asked our cleaner to be our nanny…Childcare qualifications aren’t important to me at all, after our experience with the nursery. …I think childcare training is silly. But what I did want is someone who speaks very good English and who is intelligent looking after my daughters. They are very verbal so they need to be stimulated by someone who can really talk to them. I was disgusted by the language of some of the people working at the nursery – they couldn’t speak grammatically at all. But, well, I’d definitely hire someone from Brazil again. Our one comes from a very good family. And she’s intelligent and speaks really good English. And the family unit is important to them in Brazil…She already worked for me so I knew what she was like. She was warm and knew how to love the children. ‘ (Margot – Employer)

‘She has an Italian passport through family connections. So she can work here legally. She’s here to work and all her brothers and sisters are here. They’re all here because they can make more money than they would in Brazil, I guess. […] Anyway, once you have one you get plugged into a network. Now the nanny’s sister is our cleaner and we pass them around among friends.’

Benefitting from global inequalities ‘The first nanny I hired was English and she was a trained nanny. But, through accident or neglect, my younger son had a bad accident in her care and then she lied about what happened. She wasn’t very educated and I think she was unsure how to communicate with us, or with the boys really. I think they watched a lot of TV with her. We interviewed a lot of people after that, they were all foreign, but then we had a Brazilian woman working for us as a cleaner and she mentioned her sister…and we just sort of clicked with her socially. She’s a trained teacher and she has ideas about what you should do with the children that I can relate to. The English one was trained, but she had very different ideas to us, you know?’ (Vanessa, Employer).

‘They have Polish passports. Apparently there is a big Polish community in Brazil and through family connections in Poland they’ve got passports. That’s why they could come after They came to learn English and to get work. And then they stayed because one of them had a boy with an English man and they just think they can earn more money and give him a better life than they could in Brazil – or in Poland, I guess.’

Visa categories and earning potential Many Latin Americans working in UK have EU passports People with strongest claims to citizenship get best pay and working conditions Highest paid nannies earn up to US$ 2200 per month Latin Americans can access best jobs because they are seen as educated and middle class

Conclusions Domestic employment in London is strongly influenced by race/ ethnic stereotypes but these change over time. Stereotypes work with and are influenced by government policy. Visas ‘mould’ workers to particular jobs or create specific spaces. Latin Americans (particularly Brazilians) are now favoured as educated and sophisticated and able to enhance the chances of the children they care for.