A FIRST step toward guaranteeing the rights to fair and dignified employment for household staff was taken Tuesday in Geneva when Saudi Arabia joined the UAE in voting to ratify a guarantee of a long list of rights to be afforded domestic workers hired from another country. The vote was sponsored by a UN body, the International Labor Organization (ILO) that includes government representatives, employers and and workers. The resolution includes providing clearly defined conditions of employment before work begins, agency fees paid by employers and not deducted from staff's wages, salary payment in cash at least once a month, at least one day off a week, and rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining. Unskilled domestic positions are usually filled by the most unskilled of workers and, consequently, the most vulnerable of the world population. There is a long history of importing labor for such work, and then changing the rules, or simply ignoring them, once the worker arrives. Although there is a preponderance of such situations in the Middle East, it is a phenomenon far from exclusive to the region. Just the other day, for example, an Indian diplomat in the US was convicted of outlining a job offer to a domestic worker and then reneging on the agreement, forcing the woman to work 15 hours daily and seven days a week for about one-third of the originally agreed upon salary. The resolution passed in Geneva still has a long way to go before becoming international law. And, even then, the crux of its success will lie in enforcement. It is all too common for good-intentioned international legislation to remain just that: legislation. Laws alone do not alter unfair circumstances. It is up to the enforcers in each country to recognize the seriousness of the situation and make sure that the remedy is correctly applied. Blowing smoke has never improved the plight of the underprivileged, and it never will. __
