EMPLOYERS of domestic workers and anti racism organisation KISA yesterday slammed the government’s “terrible” new policies on domestic workers, which they claim are unfair, exacerbate problems and only serve to make more money for the government.
The Pancyprian Association of Employers of Foreign Housemaids (PAEFH), which represents around 200 families that employ domestic workers, raised their objections to seven new government policies in a letter to the interior ministry last week.
PAEFH president Stallo Savouli said that although the interior ministry’s new measures, passed at the beginning of the year, were supposed to solve long-standing problems with domestic worker employment, the opposite is true. “In fact they will increase them,” she said.
The seven measures include a name change, from the Greek equivalent of ‘house helpers’ to ‘house workers’, inclusion of those workers in the bank guarantee system, a requirement for workers to have relevant experience and language skills, a reduction in the length of work visa from four to two years and changes to application fees. A pay rise for workers from from 429 euros a month to 456 euros was also imposed.
Savouli said that the measures will be ineffective because they target the workers and the employers, but ignore the agencies abroad and local employers who lure workers away from families into more lucrative illegal jobs.
“We have nothing against the ladies. We trust them with the people we love and we respect them. The problems start with people who ask them to leave the families,” she said.
Many workers arrive with €2000 to €3000 worth of debts to the employment agencies, but the new visa regulations mean they only have two years, instead of four, to pay them off. This increases the chance that workers will leave their employers and seek better paid, illegal employment.
Savouli said: “What we want is to prevent money going to the agents, but the government did not announce measures to prevent this.”
KISA’s Doros Polycarpou also criticised the new measures’ failure to address the agency problem. “The new policy is terrible. Instead of improving conditions it makes it much worse for (domestic workers),” he said. “The main problem is that the whole system depends on the private agents, and these changes increase the amount that workers have to borrow.”
With four year visas reduced to two, any worker arriving here will have to abandon the less well paid families almost immediately to cover their cost. This could put the workers at increased risk from exploitation and potentially unsafe living conditions, but the new system of bank guarantees leaves family to pick up the cost of repatriation.
Polycarpou also suggested that the language rule would also be detrimental for applicants and families, because they would be required to borrow against the cost of becoming certified.
On top of all this, the increase in salaries may not even be reaching current domestic workers. Polycarpou said that until now, only the employers have been noticing the changes when they go to pay their increased social insurance bill.
