The Home and Care Workers’ Union, SINTRAHOCU, was established last October. It is the first organization of its kind articulated at the state level and with the aim of demanding and defending the equality of labor rights and recognizing the importance of care work.
Currently, there are more than 600,000 domestic and care workers throughout the Spanish State, with a very clear profile: women (9 out of ten workers in the sector are) and migrant. It is estimated that their work could be equivalent to 3% of annual GDP. The union denounces that female workers in the sector see their labor rights repeatedly violated: unfair dismissals, non-payment of overtime, the right to unemployment, labor abuses, exploitation and defenselessness due to their situation, in many cases, of people in an irregular situation. In this sense, they are defined as “essential workers, without labor rights”.
The SINTRAHOCU, therefore, was born with a clear objective: the ratification of Convention 189 of the International Labor Organization and the incorporation of housework and care into the General Social Security Scheme. Convention 189, which brings together a series of labor rights, has already been signed by other European countries and would allow the group to give some guarantees, such as the right to weekly rest or the right to unemployment. They also ask that the Workers’ Statute and the Occupational Risk Prevention Law be applied to them and that the Aliens Law be repealed.
The union is the fruit of a process of work and reflection shared between different groups throughout the state that began in September 2019. You can contact us by phone 641 799 723.