Servants of Production: The Politics of Domestic Workers’ Labor Rights

Abstract

Abstract Paid domestic workers are commonly excluded from general labor laws across the globe. This article unpacks the ideological structure underlying the legitimation of this widespread exclusion and how it is shifting. I examine transcripts of official debates in the International Labour Organization 1919–2014 and in Spain 1978–2018 that deal with how paid domestic work is treated in general labor regulations. I show that justifications for limiting domestic workers’ labor rights have shifted from using the separate spheres framework to leveraging notions of racialized hierarchies of skill that perpetuate the devaluation of domestic work despite offering greater recognition of labor rights.