Maid in Brazil

TO UNDERSTAND how maids are regarded by many in Brazil you only have to look at @AMinhaEmpregada (“my maid”), a Twitter feed that retweets the unpleasant, aggressive and sometimes racist things that some employers say about their staff. In 2011 there were 6.7m domestic workers among the country’s 201m people. These workers are overwhelmingly female, many of them black and most of them poor. They have long been treated as second-class citizens, not only by their employers but also, until recently, by the law.

In April 2013 a constitutional amendment was passed to give domestic workers the same rights as everyone else. The new law defined basic entitlements, such as an eight-hour working day, a maximum of 44 hours work per week, the right to the minimum wage, a lunch break, social security and severance pay. Most of these changes have been implemented relatively easily; but seven points remain stuck in Congress. Their details are still being debated; until they are voted on they will not be enforced.

Two issues are especially controversial. The first is about the Fundo de Garantia do Tempo de Servico (FGTS), a...Continue reading



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