After she became pregnant in 2018, the domestic worker from Piauí, Clemilda Alves, began to fear the future. She worked in a residence in the administrative region of Guará, in the Federal District, and worked throughout the nine months of pregnancy.
Upon returning from maternity leave, she decided to dedicate herself to her daughter. But as a single mother, she needed to get back to work as soon as possible. During the pandemic, she worked as a day laborer. Today, at 47 years old, she works in another residence with a formal contract and guaranteed rights. But her story is a rarity. “I talk to many colleagues who were not as lucky. I really like my job,” she said.
According to the president of the Instituto Doméstica Legal, Mário Avelino, this type of employment was, in fact, the “most affected” by the covid-19 pandemic. “Today, the number of informal workers, informal domestic workers, has increased. Until 2019, the formality of domestic employment was at 27.5%. Today, it is at 23.5%”, he lamented. This Saturday (27), is National Domestic Workers Day, a date that should motivate more reflection and struggle, according to the entity.
Avelino highlights that, according to the latest National Household Sample Survey by (Pnad), by IBGE, in the last quarter of 2023, 6.3 million domestic workers were recorded. “Of these, 1.4 million have a formal contract. It is important to highlight that of these more than six million, half are daily wage earners”. Day laborers do not have a formal contract. “If she works up to two days a week, whoever hires her is not illegal. Half of the six million should have a formal contract and only 25% do and the other half are day laborers,” he states.
Stimuli
To increase the formality of domestic employment, the president of the institute argues that it is necessary to create incentives for both the employee and the employer. “The domestic workers’ PEC equalized rights. However, at this moment, the domestic worker still does not have a basic right, which is the PIS allowance”. He warns that every worker who, in the previous year, received up to two minimum wages of income becomes entitled, on his birthday, to a minimum wage bonus.
In order to have revenue, the PIS bonus bill, suggested by the Instituto Doméstica Legal, creates a contribution from the domestic employer. The proposal is for it to increase by 0.65% on the salary paid.
“We are looking for the Chamber of Deputies to ensure that, this year, this agenda is approved and sanctioned. We are sure that this will increase interest in formality.” Avelino points out that more than 90% of people in domestic employment are women and there are workers who choose not to have a formal contract so as not to lose the Bolsa Família benefit. But this creates insecurity for the employee and the boss, who may have legal problems in the future. In the institute’s assessment, since the pandemic, the category still needs to recover 350,000 jobs to match the numbers before the crisis.
Search
To understand more about the profile of domestic workers in Brazil, the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea) will begin a survey on the topic. A starting point is that two thirds are black and around 10% are over 60 years old. Even with the domestic worker law, approved in 2015, it was still not enough to guarantee the rights of these workers.
According to the IBGE, domestic workers face high rates of precariousness: 64.8% do not contribute to Social Security and 54.2% earn less than the minimum wage. The Ipea questionnaire can be filled out by professionals until June 13th and accessed through a specific link.
Oversight
Regarding the rights of domestic workers, the Ministry of Labor and Employment (MTE) recognizes that the activity was one of the most affected by the pandemic and points out that the National Coordination for the Inspection of Domestic Work and Care (Conadom), subordinate to the MTE, was created to carry out inspection actions in order to investigate possible violations in residences, condominiums and clubs, “with a view to verifying faithful compliance with the category’s labor rights”.
