Household helpers take another action, this time around travel costs | Inland

Some domestic workers testified during the campaign that they are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet at the end of the month. They accuse their employers of a lack of respect and argue that the service voucher companies remain blind to the impact of the corona crisis and rising energy prices on their employees.

“We have been negotiating better wages and working conditions for domestic helpers for six months now,” says ABVV secretary Issam Benali. “The problem is that employers don’t want to put enough money on the table.” Specifically with regard to travel costs, the unions complain that two-thirds of these costs are currently borne by the domestic help itself. “It cannot be that domestic helpers actually have to pay to go to work,” says Benali.

An additional thorn in the side of the trade union front is the fact that some service voucher companies make a lot of profit, but that hardly any of it seems to flow back to the domestic workers themselves. “The sector is subsidized for 70 percent, but especially large commercial service check companies that are often affiliated with interim companies make substantial profits,” said Benali. “We want it to stop these companies paying dividends and investing their profits in other sectors, but not giving anything to the domestic workers.”

After collecting blows on the Opera Square and a few speeches and testimonials, the action moved even further into the city. The unions had mapped out a route to offices of service voucher companies to make their voices heard there too. “All commercial players who use their profits to generously provide their shareholders with dividends,” says ACV secretary Kris Vanautgaerden. “Our question today is therefore explicitly aimed at employers. The government has already foreseen a financial effort.”

According to Vanautgaerden, the trend towards increasingly larger service voucher companies, through takeovers, also means that household helpers incur more travel costs. “The monthly gas cost will in any case increase due to the rising energy prices, but the concentration in the sector also means that the average service voucher company is changing from a neighborhood service to a larger entity with household helpers having to travel ever greater distances,” he says. “After all, they do not choose where they are employed, that is determined by the employer, who is active in increasingly larger areas.” Taking public transport or cycling is also becoming less and less of an option due to this spread.

No social agreement yet for domestic helpers: “One step forward, two back”