Human Rights Watch highlight domestic workers as among the most abused people in the world. Indeed, so at risk are domestic workers that the Domestic Workers Convetion was adopted in 2011 to try and provide global standards to protect them.

In the UK, a recent paper from the University of Exeter reveals that reforms designed to ensure that live-in domestic workers get the minimum wage might run aground due to the immigration rules introduced after Brexit.

Shut out

The authors explain that people who live in private households as well as working there have been shut out of minimum wage regulations as they are instead treated as though they’re a member of the family.

The UK government recently repealed the exemption, but the authors warned that if workers lack permission to work, enforcement will remain a significant obstacle to overcome. Domestic work is inherently complicated, with an often blurred line between when people are working and when they aren’t, which the authors believe can lead to abusive relationships forming.

“The ‘family worker’ exemption and its application to domestic workers devalues domestic labor as work that is performed in the home, primarily by women, and leads to it being viewed as unskilled work or even not work at all,” the authors explain. “Although not specifically intended by Parliament, in some cases courts and tribunals have sanctioned employers’ use of the exemption to avoid the payment of minimum wage to domestic workers who are clearly not au pairs.”

Insecure status

The paper suggests that the situation of domestic workers has worsened as a result of the Immigration Act 2016, as the act made “illegal working” an imprisonable offence.

“The current position makes claims by irregular migrants highly uncertain and difficult to bring,” the authors explain. “At the same time, domestic workers are particularly vulnerable to falling into irregular status because of the unfavorable visa, which is limited to a six-month non-renewable period based on the supposedly ‘low-skilled’ nature of domestic work and the reproductive needs of employers.

“The impact of the migration regime is to ‘produce’ workers with particular types of relations to employers and to labor markets. In the case of domestic work, this means producing workers who are systematically disadvantaged in enforcing their rights.”