History Made: The Ratification of C189

On Friday, June 11th, after eleven years since its passage, Spain finally ratified the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Convention on Domestic Workers (C189). This policy, adopted in 2011, codifies labor standards for those employed in the domestic care sector.  It entered into force in 2013, ratified by 35 states, only eight of which belonged to the European Union. Its unanimous ratification by the Spanish government, precisely a decade after its promulgation at the ILO, marks a historic victory for SEDOAC. 

 

The history of what Marchetti et al. (2021) call the  “C189 process” (its preparation, promulgation, ratification, and implementation) is one of global struggle with important national variations. Though the earliest evidence of domestic work has existed for centuries, the ILO did not consider international standards for the sector until 1948 (Boris, 2019). However, the cause of domestic worker’s rights lost momentum in the postwar period (due to the modernization of housework according to Coser, 1973), and the issue was not taken up again until the mid-1990s (Marchetti et al, 2021). 1996 saw the passage of Convention No. 177,  setting labor standards for home work, to the credit of international feminist and labor activism in the 1970s and 80s. C189 was finally put on the ILO agenda in March 2008. During this time, domestic work was a growing sector, following the northward migration of the global proletariat (see Federici, 2017 for more on the “New International Division of Labor”). In Europe, new arrivals gravitated towards informal and precarious jobs, such as domestic work, that would open pathways to regularization (Lebrusán Murillo et al, 2019). The demand for at-home care services in European countries also increased during this time due to the needs of an aging population, rising rates of women’s employment, and the privatization of state assistance programs (Gonzalez-Fernandez, 2013). Marchetti et al, (2021) discuss the reception of C189 in this context:

“In some of the countries…C189 can be seen as the exogenous shock that has fostered the formation of new organizations and the creation of an unprecedented terrain for their action. In others it has significantly transformed an already existing movement, improving its visibility and allowing more space for action.” 

The latter was certainly the case for SEDOAC. The organization was founded in 2006 to serve as a network of mutual protection and empowerment among active domestic workers. They were primarily concerned with meeting each other’s social and material needs. 2011 was a moment of aperture for domestic workers following the rise of the Podemos party post-15-M movement, and the passage of C189; the organization added legislative activism to their repertoire of resistance. 

SEDOAC has been celebrating the ratification of C189 all week. President of the organization Carolina Elias related to reporters: “It has been a great victory even though it’s a small step…it’s been the symbol of our fight for more than a decade.” Now, it is up to the Federal Government to pass legislation enacting the articles of the Convention. In other countries (namely Ecuador, Colombia, and the Philippines) bureaucracy has been a major obstacle in seeing C189 realized. Organizers in Brazil ended up abandoning C189 as a framework outright and focused on promoting constitutional reforms instead (which has come with its own challenges). SEDOAC, however, has been proactive in shifting to implementation. They recently met with the Ministry of Labor to propose such measures as those found in Belgium and France which impart the guarantee of care to the state. A proposition against the commodification of care and the state’s reliance on foreign labor to fulfill this social need is historically contingent in Spain, considering the country’s previous struggles regarding austerity and migration. Further, the organization continues to advocate for the mass regularization of undocumented domestic workers by way of Royal Decree to ensure all laborers receive the social security benefits assured by C189.

In other words, there is much work to be done. The ratification of C189 is a historic event in Spain but as Elias emphasizes in our conversations, the convention is only one of many tools through which workers advocate for themselves. La Lucha Sigue.