Blackett, A. (2019). Everyday Transgressions: Domestic Workers’ Transnational Challenge to International Labor Law

Abstract

One in every twenty-five women workers worldwide is a domestic worker. They are largely invisible, undervalued, and lack the most basic labor protections. Professor Blackett’s book, Everyday Transgressions, tackles this invisibility head on and provides a much-needed conceptual framing that lays bare the inequities faced by domestic workers and the transnational movement for change. The book expertly peels back the layers of history of subjugation that shaped the historic efforts by the International Labour Organization to adopt the first international treaty for domestic workers – the ILO Convention Concerning Decent Work for Domestic Workers (Domestic Workers Convention, No. 189). In this book, Professor Blackett provides an insider’s view of this historic moment. She served as the ILO’s lead expert and wrote the ILO’s Report IV:1 on Decent Work For Domestic Workers (“Law and Practice Report”). Her vivid descriptions of the negotiations, the conflicts, and the behind-the-scenes agitations bring to life the Convention. The book benefits not only from Professor Blackett’s professional expertise in this area but also her intimate connection to her family’s legacy as migrant domestic servants. The legacy of subordination and servitude does not strip domestic workers of their agency. Everyday Transgressions makes a persuasive argument for the need for the ILO’s Domestic Workers Convention. Professor Blackett also creates a unique framing around the law of the household workplace – a largely invisible counterforce that is asymmetrical Book Reviews