Chile Forum

Related little story. My wife comes in with a horrified look on her face one day a few years ago. I asked her what was wrong. She says something along the lines of, "I have been violating the oldest labor law on the books. I forgot to provide a place for the housekeeper to sit down and rest."

In fact it essentially one of the first labor laws ever passed in Chile and is so basic that it is almost a joke among first year law students because most labor law classes open with it as part of basic labor law history. Your housekeeper must have a place to sit and rest. She can not be on her feet all day.

As for protection, the problem with the housekeepers and domestic staff is there is a massive off the books informal labor market. Almost none want to be paid a regular recorded full time wage and prefer cash, because they then can still qualify for all kinds of other government benefits. So at best most are qualified under part-time workers. When they do bring labour claims with the labor relations board, the employee almost always wins. So, protection? It is there. Now will they use it is a different matter.

Now in most of these cases discussed what they have described is a crappy humiliating thankless job, and more specifically the place they work sucks (even if their boss is not so bad). The guys that pick up garbage have as similar sort of humiliating job. They are generally not invited in to the country club main dining room either for a glass of lemonade. I have not really seen anyone outline real systematic abuse that could be corrected by a law, other than perhaps some sort of minimum wage increase. The problem perhaps is a law to regulate domestic staff in private clubs or something.

Just heard from security that Ms. Perez has been receiving death threats. When I brought up the unedited tv interview his mood did not change. The mood being giddy. Oi vey!
Protests have begun within Algarrobal II. An actress dressed as a nana jumped in a pool at Hacienda Chicureo. Let the class wars begin.