Our domestic workers deserve better
Within countless households across the Philippines, domestic workers provide essential care work for other families so their own families may live. And yet, they are among the most vulnerable and underappreciated workers in the country. Long hours, below-minimum wages, little to no social protection, and, in extreme cases, outright abuse characterize their experience. While the government has enacted laws to protect them, implementation remains weak, leaving domestic workers struggling to survive on paltry earnings and weak state regulation.
As help cannot be expected from the powers that be, domestic workers have taken it upon themselves to organize and assert the rights and legitimacy they are entitled to.
In 2015, kasambahays established the United Domestic Workers of the Philippines (United), a trade union working to secure three fundamental rights: fair and livable wages, inclusion in social protection programs, and the full implementation of the Republic Act No. 10361 or the Domestic Workers Act.
Asking for higher wages is nothing new; everyone wants to make more money from their labor, but the situation is starkly different for domestic workers. As of this writing, the daily minimum wage in the National Capital Region is P645, far short of the “family living wage” ideal of P1,223 as calculated by the independent think tank IBON Foundation. Even then, domestic workers earn far less: the government set their minimum wage at about P300/day, less than a quarter of the estimated living wage. Wages are even lower outside of the capital region, where the cost of daily essentials is not very different from prices within Metro Manila.
Having a lower floor for the domestic workers’ minimum wage indicates just how undervalued domestic and care work is in the country. Unfortunately, this is not unique to the Philippines. Currently, about 116 million or over 70 percent of women perform care work, an industry valued by the International Labor Organization at $11 trillion, bigger than the technology or manufacturing industry.
Despite this, domestic workers remain among the most vulnerable workforce with little to no protection. Unlike other minimum-wage workers, domestic workers suffer exclusion from social protection programs like the Social Security System, PhilHealth, and Pag-Ibig. While the law states that they are entitled to have their contributions paid in part by their employers, only 5 percent or less of domestic workers have been registered on all three social protection schemes as of October 2024, according to the Department of Labor and Employment-Bureau of Workers with Special Concerns.
Of the 5 percent, many are categorized as “self-employed,” meaning their employers do not—or refuse to—contribute their share as mandated by law, leaving domestic workers paying out of pocket from their already meager salary to pay for social protection coverage.
The problem is not the lack of legislation. The Philippines prides itself as one of the first and the only Asian country to ratify the International Labor Organization’s Convention on Domestic Workers, a landmark treaty that sets global labor standards for domestic workers, in 2012. The government followed through with this commitment a year after by enacting RA 10361. But over a decade later, the law has done little to improve the working conditions of domestic workers in the country. Even now, most have no legally binding contracts, less than four nonworking days per month, and are unregistered by employers in the barangay, excluding them from critical workers’ safety nets.
Aside from poor implementation, domestic workers and their employers are simply not aware of the Domestic Workers Act. Some employers are uninformed that the law also protects their rights and not just that of their employees. Making things worse is the lack of political and fiscal will from local government units and relevant agencies to bridge the many gaps in the law’s implementation.
Despite these, many Filipinos become domestic workers as a last resort for households with little to no income in communities affected by worsening natural hazards and extreme weather events. They are forced to leave their families and work in exploitative conditions, risking their lives and dignity, in cities here and abroad after the climate crisis destroyed their homes or livelihoods.
These realities that domestic workers face only show why unions such as United are needed. Through concerted actions, they can organize, educate, and mobilize their members while providing a collective voice for lobbying and engaging in dialogue with the government from the local to the national level. For their part, United has worked toward the full implementation of the Domestic Workers Act for almost 12 years.
Far from being adversarial, trade unions such as United demand the long-overdue recognition from the government, employers, and fellow domestic workers of the essential role of domestic and care work in the society. Their demands, rooted in basic dignity, are right and just—we must recognize that domestic work is work, and it must come with full rights and protection guaranteed to all workers.
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Adriana Chiu of Labor Education and Research Network (Learn) and Jon Robin Bustamante of Oxfam Pilipinas believe that care work is real work. Learn and Oxfam Pilipinas are part of the Care Connect project, which advocates for the recognition of care work and better pay and work conditions for all care workers.
