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Out of the Shadows. Organising and Protecting Domestic Workers in Europe: the Role of Trade Unions

Document number
1530
Date
2005
Title
Out of the Shadows. Organising and Protecting Domestic Workers in Europe: the Role of Trade Unions
Author/publisher
European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC)
Availability
View/save PDF version of this document
Document type(s)
Research/Study/Analysis,
Keywords
International Restructuring Education Network Europe (IRENE), Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), Migrant rights; Migration management; Comprehensive approach to migration; Migration policy; Irregular Migration, Feminization of migration, Economic migration, Labour migration, Free movement, Undocumented migrants; Undocumented labour;
Summary
Domestic workers are a large but mostly invisible workforce in Europe, and they are extremely vulnerable to grossexploitation. They require any and every help the trade union movement can give them. Organising such workers is not easy. How do unions reach out to workers not all working on the same site, not in largenumbers? But it can be done, however difficult or different a task for us it may be. The problems of the under- or non-recognition of domestic workers, their services, and their rights, existed before therewas significant migration into Europe of people (largely women) to fill these roles. Now, however, the domesticworkforce especially in Western and Southern Europe, is largely migrant and therefore migration policies and migrantworkers’ rights have to be integral to our discussions.This report is based on the proceedings of a conference organised by the EuropeanTrade Union Confederation (ETUC), in collaboration with the InternationalRestructuring Education Network Europe (IRENE) and the Platform forInternational Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM).
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