Unlikely power for domestic workers.

Two people I've known (husband & wife) and respected since childhood deeply disappointed me by the way they spoke to their house maid (let's call her Laxmi). There was no physical abuse involved but lots of emotional distress from what I could see.

The man would heap insults on her liberally for not cutting his salad right, making his tea too strong and going to her room when she had nothing else to do in the kitchen. The woman would constantly nag her for not doing things just so and wake her up at ungodly hours in the night to make her some tea. The yelling and nagging started at 7am and stopped at 10:30pm.

What made this especially hard to stomach was that the maid had left an abusive home to escape beatings and inhuman treatment. Although she was semi-literate in a regional language, she knew knew how to punch in numbers into her cell phone (the card of which belonged to the owners of the house she worked in). She didn't have a bank account because she didn't even have a voter ID card or a ration card. There was nothing on record to even show that she existed.

I had heard of folks calling house-maid & domestic servant placement bureaus/agencies to fill positions for domestic staff. The bureaus sent them the required help & collected a fee from the employer. They are also required (by law) to collect other information from the employer to protect the safety of the placed staff. Laxmi had never heard of these bureaus. I promptly called one I found on justdial and asked if they'd be willing to place a maid I was calling on behalf of. They said they could & got to work. I sincerely beleived that it made a difference that I called on behalf of Laxmi. Perhaps they took this placement a tad seriously when they found that the girl had support from a middle class individual.

Several phone calls & a couple of interviews later Laxmi had a position available at another household where she felt she would be treated better and she left for her new job. She also had the phone number of the placement agency. The agency had requested that the new owner help her fill out an application for a voter ID card & also get her a SIM card for her cell phone (for which she would pay him). I called to find out how she was doing a couple of weeks later & learnt that although the people she worked for were nice, they'd not communicated correctly to her the amount of work she was expected to do. She'd called the maid placement agency & asked to me moved to a new position since she wasn't able to deal with the amount of house-work. The agency in turn called her employer & worked out a better system where her work load was reduced.

It turns out that the fee rendered to placement agencies upon the placement of a domentic worker is almost always non-refundable. This puts the agency (and indirectly the domestic worker) in a position to bargain. Although the middle class constantly complains about this factor & claims it is mis-used by agaencies & maids to 'gouge' them, the situation is not entirely without merit.

Laxmi continues to work for her new employers & is much happier there. The phone number of the maid placement bureau gives her some power. And it is only with power that any of us can have dignity.

This is a true story.