85% Domestic Workers Not Paid For Lockdown Period: Survey

Domestic workers did not benefit from the Central Government’s order asking the employers to pay full wages during the ongoing Lockdown, a survey has revealed.

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Nearly 85% of domestic workers have not been paid the wages for the lockdown period, according to a survey conducted by the Domestic Workers Sector Skill Council (DWSSC).

The results are based on a random survey of 200 domestic workers across eight States in April, which included Delhi, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu.

About 38% said they are facing problems in arranging food as stocks in the nearby shops are limited, and some faced hardship in receiving ration provided by the Government.

The data collected by the DWSSC showed that many workers are still out of luck in finding jobs and accessing wages.

The biggest challenge was before the 30% who did not have money to survive the Lockdown period and don’t know how long they will be able to manage with that. The majority of them are those whose employers are not paying them for the lockdown period.

Those who could not go back to work during Lockdown constitute 96% of the domestic workers, while only 4% are still working.

Around 23.5% of the workers migrated back to their native place as their spouse/ fathers were daily wage workers like painters, mason etc, who were employed in big cities.

76.5% of workers are still staying in the cities/ towns where they work and live with their families.

On a positive side, 25% of the workers say that they are not facing any food problem as they have either returned back to their native places or their employers are paying them the Lockdown salary.

The survey shows that only 41.5% of the domestic workers are aware of the Government Helplines to avail the facilities being provided during the lockdown period.

Meanwhile, the majority of the domestic workers (98.5%) are aware of the precautions should be taken to be safe from COVID-19.