As we marched down Dublin’s O’Connell Street on 1 May for Inter-national Labour Day, I saw every reason why our work should be celebrated, valued and respected. While we benefit a lot from working abroad, our employers at the same time greatly benefit from our existence as workers. Both sides’ lives would come to a standstill if we didn’t have one another for survival.
As we marched down Dublin’s O’Connell Street on 1 May for Inter-national Labour Day, I saw every reason why our work should be celebrated, valued and respected. While we benefit a lot from working abroad, our employers at the same time greatly benefit from our existence as workers. Both sides’ lives would come to a standstill if we didn’t have one another for survival.
In solidarity with other workers and trade unions, I felt proud to be part of this struggle – a struggle that the Irish working class started a century ago, and the same that we carry on as today’s Irish working class, as most low-paying jobs in unregulated sectors are occupied by migrant workers. Their struggle in the previous century is our struggle today, and we have hugely learnt from the strength and unity they had.
I also couldn’t help but reflect positively on how I have benefited from being a domestic worker. I thought in particular of the childcare course I did for a year in 2011, which was my first education in Ireland, the same course that gave me part-time work in a crèche a few months later, leading to my current work that I am proud of and helped me pay rent for my own place for the last two years. This would not have happened if I had not saved every penny I made from my first job in Ireland to pay for the course. Although I was paid only €400 monthly then, I was able to tuck almost every penny of it under my mattress because I lived with the family and did not have to spend unnecessarily.
Despite harsh working conditions and low pay, we have benefited in some way from working abroad. Many domestic workers I know in Ireland don’t have their families and children here. They would not have been able financially to look after them here – at most they have been able to live basic lives with what little they earn – but importantly, they have been able to send money back to their families back home for the education of their children, which would not have been possible had they not come to work in Ireland. Furthermore, from the monies earned in Ireland others have been able to build decent, warm and dry homes for their families who may have lived way below the line of poverty.
In all this, it sounds like these women have been done a great favour. But in reality they have made huge sacrifices to live half their lives, or even more, away from their families. They made these choices to alleviate their loved ones from poverty, to make a better future for their children. In fairness, not even Skype can fill the voids in theirs and their family’s lives. They have missed so many birthdays, missed walking their kids to and from school – nobody stops for a moment to think what all this does to these women, how it breaks their hearts.
These women are my rocks, the pillars of my strength. I looked at them as they carried their banners with pride and smiled to myself inside, thinking: ‘Your work should be celebrated!’
To be continued...
Mariaam Bhatti is a member of the Domestic Workers Action Group and Forced Labour Action Group of the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland.
