The COVID-19 pandemic impact on domestic care work in Argentina

POBLETE, LORENA

Londres (virtual)

Seminario; COVID-19 and its Impact on Domestic Workers: continental perspectives on Argentina, India, and the United Kingdom; 2020

London School of Economics LSE

In mid-Mach, when the Covid-19 pandemic strikes South America, Argentina´s government locked down the country and declared the state of emergency. Only essential workers, carrying a special authorization, were allowed to work. This restriction lasted seven months.Although in Argentina, traditionally, domestic workers perform simultaneously care and cleaning work, only workers who perform exclusively care work for children or elderly people were considered essential workers. Thus, 70% of domestic workers couldn´t work during the shutdown. However, employers must continue to pay wages and social security contributions during this period. Furthermore, redundancy was prohibited. Then, if the labor relationship was interrupted, the employer has to double the severance payment, because the layoff would be classified as unjustified. Since March, three different scenarios appeared. First, employers declared that domestic workers perform care work instead of cleaning tasks. This change in their status allows them to have the authorization to work as essential workers. In the second scenario, employers continue to pay wages and contributions, particularly in the case of a formalized labor relationship. In some cases, domestic workers received the total amount of their wages. In others, employers reduced unilaterally the number of monthly working hours to lower the salary. In the third scenario, domestic workers were dismissed even though redundancy was banned. Since the special labor tribunal for domestic workers closed during the pandemic, domestic workers are not able to claim the severance payment. Because of the weight of informality in the sector, only 24% of domestic workers are entitled to labor and social security rights. Therefore, only for these formal workers, their employers are legally obliged to pay full wages and social contributions. During the first month, almost all formal employers comply with their obligations. However, over the time, they started to lower the wages by reducing the declared working time or by not complying with the wage increase established by the state.For informal workers, the situation was very different because they do not have rights to claim. Hence, most of them lost their jobs during the pandemic. Some of them were informed by their employers, but for others, employers simply stopped paying the wages and never answered their calls.During the lockdown, many employers lost their source of income or saw their income diminished. That was the main reason why they couldn´t comply with their obligations as employers. While the state support employment in other sectors by paying part of the employees´ wages, for domestic work employers, no measures had been taken.As a way to ensure a minimum income to these workers who have very small salaries and live in poverty, the state allows them to have access to the unconditional cash transfer program created during the pandemic. This program started as a one-time cash transfer, but it was extended, allowing beneficiaries to receive four cash transfers in 8 months, from April to November. This contingent solution leaves today many domestic workers without income.In November, the government authorized all domestic workers to return to work. As part of the Covid-19 protocol, domestic workers are not allowed to use public transportation and can only work in one workplace even if they have more than one employer. While these protective measures aim to reduce the risk of infection for domestic workers, they seem problematic in their implementation. Because domestic workers cannot use public transportation, the employer must be able to provide a private transportation. But, if the employer cannot guarantee that, the domestic worker cannot work. Also, for 34% of domestic workers who work for more than one employer, they must choose one workplace and quit the other jobs. In this case, the domestic worker´s wages will necessarily decrease. In summary, since domestic workers are one of the most vulnerable workers because they work in the employer´s house in close proximity, the government established some measures to protect them during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, these formal protections did not become real protections. Most of them appeared as constraints to work. In some cases, employer imposed domestic workers to work as "false" care workers or to legally quit. In other cases, employers decided unilaterally to change the contractual arrangements or even to terminate the labor relationship without notifying the domestic worker. According to domestic workers, they had to accept to lower their wages. Additionally, they lost part of their incomes do to dismissals. As poor workers, they could have access to the special Covid cash transfer program, which provides a small amount of money every two months. Consequently, during this critical time, domestic workers have to face the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic without public policies suitable for them.