Glenda Daniels For the first time in South Africa domestic workers will be given accredited training once a new research project about to be undertaken by the Ministry of Labour gets under way next week. The Department of Labour is doing research after it was approached by the South African Domestic Workers’ Union to upgrade the skills of domestic workers.
Research will be based on interviews with domestic workers and their employers and will seek to design training programmes with nationally recognised qualifications that will be in line with the National Qualifications Framework. Domestic workers are among the most exploited employees in South Africa, earning as little as R150 a month and working extremely long hours. Lebogang Gwangwa, deputy director of designated groups in the Department of Labour, said that full-blown research will start at the beginning of September.
“This is the first time that accredited training will take place for domestic workers. This is the most exploited and underpaid of all sectors. “Most domestic workers do not go into such work thinking they want to remain there forever. This is their opportunity to develop skills and training especially in light of job losses in the country. “As people lose jobs the first area they start rationalising is domestic work. They think, ‘Well I can do my own cleaning,’ and they get rid of the domestic worker. Now domestic workers can move into the hotel industry or dry cleaning or set up their own small business,” Gwangwa said. Representative of the South African Domestic Workers’ Union Eunice Dhladhla said: “It is important that domestic workers are getting opportunities for training for the first time. For too long this has been a neglected sector. Employers constantly complain that we are demanding more money for domestic workers, for instance R1 200, which is a lot of money, but they say that the workers don’t have the skills. This will be a chance for domestics to increase their skills and learn cooking, how to answer a telephone, baking and looking after children, among other things.” The labour ministry says the research will be funded by the German Agency for Technical Cooperation and will be conducted by the Community Agency for Social Enquiry, and the training will tie in with the national Skills Development Strategy that is under way in the different sectors in the country.
A committee consisting of representatives of the National Skills Authority, women’s groups, South African Domestic Workers’ Union, training providers and the Department of Labour has been set up. The services sector Seta (Sector Education and Training Authority) will coordinate the training of domestic workers (the Skills Development Act has assigned each sector of the economy a Seta).