Search

This article explores how digital platforms have changed working conditions and labor relations in domestic and care work in recent years. The study focuses on Hogarú, a digital platform in Colombia. Through a qualitative study involving interviews and focus groups, we analyze Hogarú’s business model, along with the changes in working conditions for domestic workers compared to traditional employment methods. The study highlights two main findings. First, digital platforms can enhance domestic workers’ bargaining power by raising awareness of their rights, professionalizing their work, promoting physical meeting spaces with other workers, providing ongoing training, and ensuring fundamental rights. Second, while digital platforms can shift the traditional labor relationship from one where the domestic worker directly offers care services to one managed by the company, power imbalances and low recognition of this work persist. This article offers insights into digital labor platforms from the perspective of the workers involved

Argentinean economic reforms introduced in the 1990s were characterized by structural adjustments which increased both job insecurity and barriers to health care. In Córdoba, some individuals found themselves without health coverage. Conversely, many private practices, also in crisis, were forced to close with a resultant loss of heath care jobs. Rather than accepting layoffs, the employees of the private Junin Clinic took over the facility and reorganized it as a cooperative. They wanted both to keep their jobs and to provide affordable health services primarily to the uninsured. We hypothesized that the quality of their clinical jobs would impact on the care they provided. We undertook to examine how changes in the organization of the clinic affected working relations and working conditions . We undertook a descriptive, correlative survey of 25 employees chosen via a multi-stage process to be representative of the clinic. Four percent worked under contract; eighty percent were professionals who split their earning 50/50 with the cooperative. The remaining workers were cooperative members. Fifty percent of those interviewed earned less than the basic minimum wage. Forty-four percent worked alone; the remaining workers were part of teams. Eighty-eight percent felt that their job was appropriate for their level of training. No one reported any occupational accidents. Eighty percent reported satisfactory hygienic conditions in their workplace. While the division of labor at the clinic had not changed since the take over, administrative structures were different. Cooperative decisions are made in large meetings. Since most professionals are not members of the cooperative, they do not participate in these meetings. However, we observed that relations and exchanges among the workers were less hierarchical. This work was undertaken to inform the debate on the relationship between working conditions and the provision of health care. We found that the work environment impacts on health care workers as they try to provide a more equitable form of health care.

In Chile, despite a series of laws to improve working conditions for domestic workers, informal employment persists. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, this article examines why the informality of work is so persistent. We find that existing policies do not take into account the multidimensional nature of work informality, or the power dynamics between workers and employers that determine the conditions of domestic work. By studying these dynamics, we find that some female domestic workers are particularly vulnerable, like those with urgent economic needs or with unstable work arrangements. Future efforts to formalize the sector should take into consideration women workers’ heterogeneous abilities to claim their labor rights.