INVESTIGADORES
POBLETE Lorena Silvina
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Decent Work for Domestic Workers: Institutional Innovations in Argentina
Autor/es:
POBLETE, LORENA
Lugar:
Ginebra
Reunión:
Congreso; 6th Regulating for Decent Work Conference; 2019
Institución organizadora:
Regulating for Decent Work Network, ILO
Resumen:
This research project focuses on the institutional process for the recognition of domestic workers´ rights, which follows the international movement promoting the ILO Convention 189. This process can be analyzed by differentiating two moments, involving various institutions: the making-law process involving the National Congress and the implementation involving the National Tax Agency (which is in charge of collect social contributions), and a special administrative jurisdiction called Domestic Work Tribunal at Buenos Aires. From a sociological perspective, and based on the analysis of congressional debates, legislation, and ethnographic field work at the Domestic Work Tribunal, this paper seeks to explain how different state institutions, almost at the same time, respond differentially to the demand for the recognition of domestic workers´ rights. The various strategies developed by these three institutions seem to depend on the way these institutions defined domestic work as a special labor relationship. In all three cases, state agents (legislators, tax agency and Domestic Work Tribunal´s agents) have to face the same dilemma faced by ILO representatives and experts during the standard-setting process. This dilemma was presented by Adelle Blackett (1998) as the choice between two opposite ways to consider domestic work as a job like any other or as a job like no other. If domestic work is considered as a job like any other, general employment regime could apply to this kind of work. At contrary, if domestic work is considered as a job like no other, legislation must include special provisions for this activity. As Blackett highlighted in her research concerning the ILO Convention 189, the two notions play a role in standard-setting process. In Argentine, analyzing the strategies developed by these institutions, the tension between these two notions remains. However, a new crucial notion plays an important role in the law-making process and during the process of implementation of the new law, which is the definition of the employer as an employer like no other. Domestic workers´ employer is another worker: is a family or even another worker woman. The analysis of institutional strategies shows that the two definitions of domestic work are constantly in tension with the definition of the employer.