Maids of honor
Filipinos living in the Philippines with one or more house help (it is now improper to call them maids, “alipin,” “katulong” or “chimay”) remain the envy of countrymen overseas. Life may be harder back home but despite dawdling personal and economic progress here, having house help is still a luxury enjoyed by the richest of our kababayans down to the minimum wage earners.
Even households below minimum wage. I’ve seen homes in slums with “kasambahay” although these workers are more of stay-in charity cases to “help out in the house” in return for roof over their heads and food, than the actual fruits of being gainfully employed.
Friends who have migrated to other parts of the globe can only wish they had someone to clean up after them, attend to the cooking and do “other tasks required” without having to pay by the hour in precious dollars. How they wish it were like in the Philippines where one can get a helping hand while being irreverent to fair wages, acceptable work hours, justifiable scope of work, due benefits and humane living arrangements.
House help come cheap here. Rates are subject to personal negotiations and are not covered by law. The going rate is now at around P 2,500 (and up) in urban areas, while it could go as low as P 1,500 a month in rural households. Again, employers often haggle as applicants almost always accept out of desperation and “hiya” in the absence of self-worth or articulate bargaining skills. Besides “negotiated rates” payment terms can also be flexible. For a lot of families on a tight budget, house help wages are often the first ones up for deferred payment.
Working long hours seems to be part of the contract as well. House help are not considered “employed individuals” deserving of a reasonable eight-hour work day. They are oftentimes treated as “part of family.” Such a treatment goes without saying employers expect service beyond the extra mile as house help would serve their own families. The long work hours could begin at dawn (by preparing children for school) and can last until the last member of the household have gone home, eaten and hit the sack. That’s roughly 20 hours of slave labor.
They also work all week, resting only on Sunday afternoons – considered our national house help downtime (if their employers even allow them days off). Holidays may even be their busiest day, as all members of the family are home and are indulged in holiday activities i.e. eating (which entails more dishwashing than on regular days).
Benefits are unheard of, to house help in most homes. The fact that they are treated “as family” employers are not obliged to give them benefits for “employees” such as 13th month pay, sick and vacation leaves, SSS and PhilHealth subsidies. Many of them have also been living in appalling conditions in homes where there is barely bed space. Some are also victims of abuses and maltreatment.
Such are the living and working conditions of many house help in the Philippines that Diwa Partylist is now pushing for the Magna Carta of Household Helpers. House Bill 1815 ensures and protects their rights. The proposed bill defines household workers as family driver, babysitter, gardener, cook, laundry woman or all around helper.
Under the proposed bill endorsed to President Noynoy Aquino for certification as “urgent” the Magna Carta for Household Helpers prescribes a minimum wage of P 3,500 for those employed in NCR, P 3,000 minimum for those in chartered cities and first class municipalities, and P 2,000 for those employed elsewhere.
The law protects the kasambahay from physical, emotional and sexual abuse, as well as handling or transport of heavy loads without proper assistance. It prohibits any work in hazardous environments or any work that requires them long hours and late nights as it protects them from any form of slavery and prostitution or pornography.
The proposed bill further provides for compensation in addition to food, lodging and medical attendance (no more free food for work). The Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Boards shall determine the minimum wages. Apart from salaries, house help also get 13th month pay. They cannot be required to work more than six days a week, 10 hours a day while they get 14 days of vacation leave yearly, aside from maternity and paternity leaves.
They can never be deprived of access to outside communication (so much for texting while working). They are barred from bonded labor and are granted access to third party labor mediation. Those aged 15-18 cannot be required to work more than eight hours a day and cannot work between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Parents or wards of “batang kasambahays” cannot collect their salaries for them. They shall not be deprived access to formal education and opportunities for self improvement.
House help really deserve honorable wages and working conditions with dignity. They should be treated humanely and afforded all the benefits of an employed individual. We trust them with our homes, our children and our lives and that is almost priceless. While they live with us to work, they are not “family” and their service is as laborious as any good day’s work.*
