1. ITCILO COURSE A Trade Union on Promoting and Defending the Rights of Domestic Workers 10 to 14 December 2012 TMLC, Kisumu, Kenya Organising Domestic Workers into Trade Unions

2. Objective
Aims:
To improve the visibility and status of the domestic workers through increased organisation and their effective representation by trade unions.
To achieve rights at work for domestic workers in law and practice, including the:
- rights to organise,
- right to represent,
- right to negotiate and of their voices to be heard through collective power
- right for decent income, working conditions, social protection & social dialogue

3. Objective
Achieve collective trade union protection for domestic workers
Create conditions for the empowerment of domestic workers through knowledge development, management and dissemination
Reinforced unity and solidarity among domestic workers and between them and other workers, including those within the formal economy

4. Opportunities Strategy for: - Rebuilding the trade union movement
- Increasing the membership and strength of the trade union movement
- Enhancing unity and solidarity of workers
- Improving the financial position of the trade union movement
- Extending union protection to domestic workers, including women workers who constitute the majority of workers in this sector
- Curbing child labour, forced labour & discrimination

5. “Combining our Efforts” Building a Movement
Domestic Worker Organisations
Trade Unions
Support Organisations
Women’s and Social Movements , NGOs etc.
Social Movements and other organizations

6. Challenges
Solidarity and collective action is not always a natural tendency among domestic workers
Many domestic workers perceive their work as an extension of family duties and lack a sense of a worker identity
Labour laws often encompasses only workers in clearly defined employment relationships – not informal contractual relationships
Domestic workers work in private households which are in essence scattered and individualized workplaces

7. Challenges
Trade unions have enough on their hands, let alone free up resources to devote to hard-to-organise workers in the domestic labour sector.
Most domestic workers face extreme poverty – their ability to pay regular union dues is severely restricted and may be erratic and vulnerable to external shocks.
Also, organisng workers in the domestic labour sector is often seen as a drain on union resources.

8. Innovative Organising Strategies
Demand the ratification and implementation of ILS concerning FoA, CB & Domestic Workers.
Ensure that rights at work is applicable to all categories of workers.
Promote FoA and CB – actions should be extended to areas such as trade, investment and procurement
Undertake targeted organising campaigns
Work with the Media (Print & Electronic) to project the image of the trade union movement in the public sphere.

9. Innovative Organising Approaches & Models
Community-based unionism
Enterprise-based unionism
Alliance building
National and international Networks

10. GROUP WORK
Identify the issues which trade unions should use as campaign tools in order to be able to organise workers in the domestic labour sector into viable trade unions.
What do envisage as likely challenges to extending unionism to domestic workers in your countries? Suggest measures to overcome these challenges.
Elect a reporter to introduce your group report at the plenary session

11. The End
Thank you! 