Mumbai: If all goes according to plan, citizens must brace themselves to shell out more every month for their domestic staff, as the Maharashtra government is weighing its options to bring them under the Minimum Wages Act 1948. This is being done to standardise their income and weed out any difficulty they may be facing from their employers.
In a review meeting last week, Maharashtra labour minister Suresh Khade asked his department to prepare a proposal to extend minimum wages to nearly 14 lakh domestic workers in the state. The proposal will also be sent to the central government, which has been restructuring policies for workers from the organised and unorganised sectors, said the minister.
The act embraces 67 kinds of workers, based on broad classifications of skilled, unskilled and semi-skilled labour. Their salaries are marked between ₹9172 and ₹ 15,348 per month for eight hours of work, aligned with the cities they work in, underscored a circular issued by the labour department in September this year.
“We are optimistic about this coming through. There are difficulties in implementation, but we are trying to find a way out. We will share the challenges with the central government so that they may offer their knowhow with us,” said Khade. He added that there is a fear that the workers’ rights might be compromised in the aftermath of increased responsibilities of employers.
Explaining the challenges in streamlining their jobs, Vinita Vaid Singal, principal secretary, labour department, elaborated, “Their working hours are not fixed and they are engaged in a variety of tasks in multiple households. Most of them work for about one or one-and-a-half hours in each household. The minimum wages are determined based on the number of working hours and type of work – skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled. We will have to engage with the primary employers as well. We have to overcome these hurdles while implementing the minimum wages for domestic workers.”
{{/usCountry}}Explaining the challenges in streamlining their jobs, Vinita Vaid Singal, principal secretary, labour department, elaborated, “Their working hours are not fixed and they are engaged in a variety of tasks in multiple households. Most of them work for about one or one-and-a-half hours in each household. The minimum wages are determined based on the number of working hours and type of work – skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled. We will have to engage with the primary employers as well. We have to overcome these hurdles while implementing the minimum wages for domestic workers.”
{{/usCountry}}She added that while the state government has the powers to include a new class of workers entitled for minimum wages, central government decides the scale of payment.
Rupa Kulkarni, president, Vidarbha Molkarin Sanghatana and former member of Domestic Workers Welfare Board said a proposal for implementing this mandate was given to the government between 2011-14. “The domestic workers are involved in around 35 types of tasks, which include gardening, washing and drying clothes, cooking, taking care of pets, among others. We had suggested that the government finalise wages on the basis of the working hours, to safeguard the minimum wages,” said Kulkarni.
“There are 39,000 workers registered with the board, which had crossed 0.45 million at one time. It has dropped because memberships were not renewed. We will carry out a special drive to boost the registration,” said an official from the department.
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