The Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (RLS), one of the largest political education institutions in Germany today, with branches in many countries worldwide, is represented in Greece through its Office in Greece.
RLS Greece is calling for contributions for the following:
Research for the online Dossier: “Beyond ILO Convention 189”
Application deadline: 29. March 2021
Delivery of the final version: 07.May 2021
Contract fee: 1.800 Euros
Context description:
Household employees are among the least protected workers in the world. In many countries, they are not covered by general labor laws and they are often even explicitly excluded from social security systems. This is due to several reasons: On the one hand, the sector is highly fragmented, which makes organizing difficult. On the other hand, the sector is situated within the broader framework of social reproduction. It is connected to the devaluation of care work, that is often carried out by women for free, and holds an intimate link with a colonial history, whose consequences are still present today. It is therefore no coincidence that household employment is a highly feminized sector and in which migrant workers play a key role. Since it largely takes place in conditions of informality, workers are exposed to greater risks, such as sexual harassment or even human trafficking. Feminist economists, in particular, have shown that this hyper exploitation of domestic workers is a fundamental pillar of the current global economy.
That is why the adoption of ILO Convention 189 in June 2011 was a hard-fought struggle and a great success for domestic workers. For the first time, they were recognized as workers and granted basic labor rights. Furthermore, the Convention has constituted the occasion both for the construction of networks and organizations, and for strengthening alliances, both on a local and an international level.
Today, 10 years after its adoption, local situations vary. Many countries are still fighting for ratification and in the 31 countries where the Convention has been signed, struggles continue in order to put pressure on governments to take measures to make the convention effective. In many cases, this consists of a twofold strategy: improve working and living conditions immediately and, at the same time, show that this doesn’t go far enough and continue organizing for deeper changes that would overturn the logic of the current socioeconomic system. At the same time, for many household employees the Convention is not the primary goal, as the ratification and implementation would not solve the more pressing problems for domestic workers (e.g. migration regimes).
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of ILO Convention 189 on June 16th 2021 the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung is seeking international contributions to an online dossier in order to strengthen a debate on further development of the convention in scope and perspective. The objective of the dossier is to discuss how, through organizing processes of domestic workers and their allies, the rights laid out in the Convention can become a reality for more and more workers, while at the same time paving the way for further-reaching demands toward a fundamental reordering of the economic system.
Job description:
As part of the research, the contractor collects the following data and answers (among other topics) the following key questions:
- In what ways does the convention support domestic workers’ organizing processes? How does the reference to the Convention relate to demands and visions that go beyond it?What are the challenges and tensions?
- What workers would even the ratified convention not reach at all? Where are its shortcomings and how should it be improved from the point of view of those excluded?
- Where and why is the Convention not part of the organizing process of domestic workers?
- How are visions of the reorganization of social reproduction present in the current struggles of domestic worker organizations?
- What could be possible next steps at the perspective local and regional as well as the international level?
- What would such a reorganization of the economic system even look like?
Application and assessment criteria:
Submit your application digitally by 29th March 2021. The proposal should contain at least:
Suitability and context of the research: Show that you are familiar with the field and the current state of research on the subject and that your ideas have a political and contextual foundation.
Procedure and schedule
Feasibility: Show that the research you are planning is feasible within the budget.
Other elements of the application:
Letter of motivation
Curriculum vitae
The contributions should be around 20.000 characters, written in English language and will be due on May 07th2021.
Please send your offer via email to [email protected]
