Here’s a nice article from The Atlantic on the history of domestic help. Enjoy. For centuries, a woman’s social status was clear-cut: either she had a maid or she was one. Servants—often live-ins—who did the bulk of the cooking, laundry, and childcare were an indispensable part of life for virtually everyone who wasn’t a domestic…
Some amazing history in our industry. Read or listen from the link in the full story. Atlanta resident, civil rights organizer and household domestic worker Dorothy Bolden died in 2005 at the age of 80, but the work she did during her lifetime lives on. “Dorothy Bolden was absolutely fearless when it came to speaking…
As our industry gains more recognition, the focus on employee rights will increase. Hopefully. As Friday slid toward Saturday, four Brazilian women in identical black T-shirts hugged, giggled and blinked back tears in the otherwise sedate gallery of the Connecticut Senate. Their grinning lobbyist, Bobby Shea, shushed them, without conviction.Sen. Eric Coleman, D-Bloomfield, the co-chair…
Please keep an eye out for any abuses in our Private Service community. The only time it makes sense to get into anyone else’s personal business is to make sure they are safe and protected. This is shameful and hopefully the “slave” mentality of abusive employers will die off in the next generation. A Qatari…
Let’s hope employers around the world follow suit and pay staff as professionals… The Queen might be slipping down the Sunday Times Rich List, but that doesn’t mean her staff are losing out as the Living Wage has reportedly been introduced for Royal Household staff.Fifteen per cent of the Royal Household and Royal Collection Trust…
Here’s an interesting effort to support Household Helpers as a career. Hopefully human rights and living wages are also on the agenda. Millions of people in India work their whole lives as household help but few domestic workers have retirement-savings plans other than the hope that their children will care for them in their old…
Lots of help are being hired, yes. So the career aspect with education, training, and standards, are more important than ever. Even more so for clients!!! Being a great employer in business almost never translates to the same in households. More households now hire domestic help than in the Victorian period as one-in-four young adults…
What a great story about the respect between an employer and her help. Very cool. Her new book is set to hit the stands later this month.However, there is an intriguing twist in the tale of Baby Halder. This 39-year-old prolific writer does not like to be called an author.”I am a domestic help, not…
No matter what we endure with bad employment situations in the USA, we have it so much better than the majority of the world’s domestic workers. Hopefully equal rights will continue to spread throughout the nations. For many people around the world, new rules to protect rights of migrant domestic workers in Saudi Arabia may seem…
Pay your household employees on the books? Yes, it’s the right thing to do for you — and for them. As tax season gets underway, it’s a good time to learn the laws regarding your nanny, housekeeper or gardener. “We estimate somewhere between 70% to 80% of families don’t pay legally,” Tom Breedlove, director of…