Officially “invisible” or why the state does not notice 200 thousand domestic workers
26 June 15:40
“Invisible” is how some people sometimes refer to those who are still considered domestic servants, although they call themselves domestic workers. Why the state often “does not see” them and does not always understand them, and they respond in kind, "Komersant Ukrainian" found out.
on August 24, 2024, a law came into force that finally seemed to regulate the legal status of domestic workers in a comprehensive manner. According to the latest data from the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, there are about 162 thousand people in the country who provide household and personal services in households. At the same time, according to the Pension Fund of Ukraine, since the law came into force, the state authorities have received information on the official employment of only 10 domestic workers. This means that we can conclude that the law has not regulated many issues in the relationship between the state and domestic workers.
Who are domestic workers?
Pursuant to Article 173-2 of the Labor Code of Ukraine, a domestic worker is an individual from the age of 16 who performs domestic work within the framework of an employment relationship with an employer on the basis of an employment contract within a household.
According to Lyudmyla Kupina, Doctor of Law, Professor, Head of the Department of Public Legal Research at the Institute of Lawmaking and Scientific and Legal Expertise of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, International Labor Organization Convention 189 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers defines domestic work as work related to cleaning, cooking, laundry, ironing, child and elderly care, home security, driving, and pet care.
“The analysis of analytical materials on the policies of individual European countries regarding access to work and social protection of domestic workers leads to the conclusion that a domestic worker is a person who performs work related to the maintenance, operation and upkeep of a household or performs other work related to the household or personal needs of a household member(s),” the expert explained.
Domestic workers, not domestic servants
The aforementioned law establishes the legal status of domestic workers. However, the Classification of Occupations still refers to “domestic servants,” which is also classified as the simplest occupation. The head of the Domestic Workers’ Union, Tetiana Laukhina, draws attention to this inconsistency and advocates for revising this terminology.
“Since I have been communicating with domestic workers for many years and have been a part of them myself, I know that they are people with higher education, sometimes more than one, because families now have very high standards. A person has to look good, speak well, be educated, presentable, and adequate. So it’s definitely not the easiest profession. In short, it is necessary that the classifier should not contain “domestic servant” but “domestic worker”, only a domestic worker in a household. That’s what the law says – domestic workers,” notes Tetyana Laukhina.
According to her, the terminology used in the Classifier of Occupations is outdated, unethical and discriminatory, as it does not reflect the real content of the work performed by persons engaged in domestic work.
Domestic workers exist, but there is no information about them
At a recent committee hearing, Olena Kolobrodova, a representative of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights on Social and Economic Rights, identified the lack of truly effective mechanisms for the full registration of domestic workers as one of the main problems in the field of domestic work.
According to her, according to the information received by the Commissioner’s Secretariat from the State Tax Service, individuals who use the labor of other persons under an employment agreement (contract) are not unified social contribution payers in the part of domestic workers, which means that they are not obliged to file reports or pay contributions, making it impossible to identify and record such labor relations.
Also, as stated by Olena Kolobrodova, the mechanism for concluding labor contracts with domestic workers does not actually work, although it is provided for by law.
She also cited the following telling fact: according to the Pension Fund, from August 24 to December 31, 2024, only one person was officially employed as a domestic worker, but even this one person did not enter into an agreement on voluntary participation in the social insurance system with the tax authorities, nor an agreement on voluntary payment of insurance contributions to the Pension Fund.
As Tetiana Laukhina, head of the Domestic Workers’ Union, explains, people working in this informal economy do not want to be legalized.
“I talk to employers and they say that they don’t care whether their employees pay taxes, work legally or illegally. They emphasize that they just need a good, high-quality service. By law, an employer must report to the tax office that he or she is hiring an employee. Both parties are satisfied with the current situation. But if a person works unofficially, there is no social protection. Therefore, the role of the state should be the leading one, which, taking into account the wishes of domestic workers, should form its vision and propose a model. For example, there are proposals to make it mandatory to pay a single social contribution. It is also proposed to introduce reimbursement for employers if they hire an officially registered worker, and to provide grace periods for domestic workers,” said Tetyana Laukhina.
She also shared one of her dreams. According to her, it would be nice if the trade union was in charge of registration, together with the relevant government agency.
“It would deal with registration, keep records and understand the needs. Because many people really need legal protection. They don’t have labor contracts, they don’t even know where to get them, and the trade union has all this, it can provide all this,” says Tetyana Laukhina.
The complete lack of regulation of platform employment does not help solve the problem of employee registration. Online platforms are now increasingly acting as intermediaries in the provision of domestic services (through cleaning, repair, etc.), but they are not responsible for the working conditions, payment, social protection or safety of workers.
However, according to a study by Research.ua, one of the few studies dedicated to clarifying the situation in this area, 59% of respondents have faced non-payment or insufficient payment of remuneration for work performed, for 45% of respondents overtime and weekend work is paid as usual, and for 49% vacation days are not paid by the employer.
“Homework” for officials
The introduction of full-fledged registration of domestic workers, provision of social insurance, regulation of tax issues in relations with domestic workers, and regulation of new forms of employment are the things that should help the state and domestic workers reach an understanding.
Lyudmyla Kupina, Doctor of Law, Professor, Head of the Department of Public Legal Research at the Institute of Lawmaking and Scientific and Legal Expertise of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, also believes that domestic workers should be protected from performing other work that goes beyond the contract under which domestic work is performed, for example, personal assistant secretaries or couriers, or from being identified with another category of workers who work under employment contracts with individuals.
“Amending the legislation to define the signs and types of domestic work will eliminate the identification of this category of workers with other employees working for individuals. It will also help to identify domestic workers whose legal status has peculiarities in terms of additional rights, obligations, guarantees and working conditions for domestic workers living in the household’s housing, accounting for working hours and labor activity in general, and voluntary participation in compulsory social insurance,” the expert explains.
Among the proposals that should be “on the table” are the following: regulatory consolidation of the rights of domestic workers to unite in trade unions and participate in collective bargaining; mandatory extension of compulsory state social insurance to them; strengthening of mechanisms of state control over compliance with labor legislation in relation to domestic workers; ensuring that the state performs an information function in the field of regulation of domestic work.
Author: Sergiy Vasilevich
