There are many Filipinas who work as domestic helpers in a lot of places across the world. Many of them live in a ‘stay in’ arrangement which means that they live in the same house as their employers.
While ‘stay in’ domestic helpers have similar living arrangements as most maids or helpers in the Philippines, such brings them closer to danger in households prone to maltreatment of their workers.
Moreover, there are a lot of domestic helpers who are notable to enjoy a real day off and are required to work extended hours without overtime pay as they live in their employers’ homes.
To address this concern, ACTS OFW party-list hopes to push a‘live-out’ arrangement for Pinoy domestic workers. This means that if this arrangement is approved, the Filipinas will no longer live in their employers’ homes and work longer hours.
Instead, the staffing agency will pay for and provide the domestic workers’ quarters for the ‘live-out’ arrangement. Because the domestic workers will only work for 8 hours a day, they will get adequate rest to refresh them for another day of work.
Living out of their employers’ homes will also provide the workers with the privacy they needed.
“To counteract this vulnerability, we have to encourage live out schemes for our domestic workers once they have completed their job shift,” said ACTS OFW party-list spokesperson Francisco Aguilar Jr.
While the arrangement sounds new to many people, this has actually been in effect in a couple of places, including Japan. A Japanese staffing agency facilitates the hiring of Filipino ‘professional housekeepers’ who work at their employers’ household for just 8 hours a day.
“The staffing firm assigns the professional housekeepers to individual Japanese homes, and then pulls the workers out after their eight-hour shift,” Aguilar shared.
The move has been met with much debate, with a number of people saying this is not practical at all.
