Need To Amend Law No. 68-2015 To Protect Household Workers

The Domestic Labor Law failed to protect the rights of domestic workers despite the fact that this is the latest law issued to regulate household workers’ rights and obligations. The law has no stipulation on a lot of domestic workers’ rights.

It does not stipulate penalties in case of criminal acts. It still suffers from lack of enforcement mechanisms which make the legislative process ineffective and futile.

Law 68 for the year 2015 regarding domestic workers aims to regulate the relationship between workers and employers.

Therefore, it stipulates some rights that were not mentioned in previous laws which were enacted to regulate the work relationship in general, leaving household workers ‘legally unprotected’. The law states that household workers should not work for more than 12 hours a day with resting hours included, but it did not specify the number of hours for rest or after how many hours of work they could rest.

This means an employer can require a worker to return to work after one hour only which is inhumane compared to six hours of working. They need more time to rest. Moreover, the law does not mention sick leaves so the employers could force the employees to work even if they are sick.

What is really disappointing is that the law has no stipulation on penalties in case the employer sexually harasses the worker, neglecting the fact that household workers are under the employers’ control most of the time Finally, the ‘runaway’ complaint filed by the employer is a wicked trick which is still being used by people who are not concerned with workers if the employers do not want to pay the salary or if they want to harm the workers for any reason. Law Number 68 for the year 2015 must be amended to protect household workers as the current version is not enough to serve this purpose.

 

SOURCE : ARABTIMES

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