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Is the gov. actually restricting the amount of hours a maid/housekeeper can work in a day?
That doesn’t make much sense. Is this being reported correctly?Enforced????… Like everything else Scott… someone drops a dime on you or files a complaint, or your worker gets fired with cause and then makes a complaint against you … you wind up in kangaroo court… it cost you big money to play the game… you get a “fair” hearing as the employer after which you’re found to have violated rules you had no idea existed… you wind up paying a fine… as well as all the associated hearing cost… in addition to whatever the judge awards the worker.
It’s getting to be so bad that you’re better off cleaning up your own house and cooking your own meals! My Roomba does a pretty nice job and doesn’t complain too much! I’m not sure that what Costa Rica needs right now is more unemployed people. The more complicated and difficult they make it to provide domestic jobs… the more likely those jobs are lost.
Construction, tourism related work, real estate, and most other business is way down. Many women employed as domestics are single mothers or the main breadwinner at home at the moment.
While I have no problem with work rules that protect folks from being abused… that’s never been my way. I look at many of the people that have worked for me as friends and in some case family. It’s funny how they respond to such treatment, I guess it’s not always the case, but it’s always been my way and has served me well!
I don’t think that the current “protect the worker” theme is a great idea at the moment… in fact I think it’s a couple of year behind the times… let’s hope that the government sees that now is not the time to make it more difficult for folks to find honest employment.
“While I have no problem with work rules that protect folks from being abused… that’s never been my way. I look at many of the people that have worked for me as friends and in some case family”…….
I am not making any accustations here, just noting an amusing comparison to the attitude reported to have been that of slave holders in the US. Those people used to say that their slaves were almost like family and were treated fairly. There was no meed for changing things as everyone was happy and the poor negroes couldn’t care for themselves anyway. What would they do without masters to give them work?
I get suspiscous of anyone who wants to curb workers’ rights in the name of helping the workers. If there is unfairness in how laws are applied, addtess that issue rather than atack a fair worker law.
Edited on Jun 08, 2009 08:50
Glad you were able to find some amusement with my posting! However, slaves weren’t paid an honest days wage for their labors… and if I’m not mistaken they weren’t allowed to go “home” at the end of their shift!
Treating someone with respect as one would want to be treated never goes out of style… but as is often the case in Costa Rica… many employers somehow feel that inviting a worker in for a cold drink or lunch is beneath them. I enjoy the look on their face and taking a little time to serve them a drink or a meal… and surprisingly… I have never had a problem with a worker or their work…. imagine that! LOL
Imxploring, glad to hear what you do with your workers, we were staying at a villa around Christmas and I got the 3 workers there Christmas presents, man did they ever freak out, they were so happy that someone was thinking about them.
Brian
Imxploring, I think it may be a difference between latin and anglo cultures. Latins tend to maintain more of a separation between economic classes. This may explain why latin cultures have looked to socialized labor laws as a remedy.
One might think that a big danger with socialized labor laws in a latin country is that they might create a confrontational atmosphere between employer and employee. On the other hand, look at the United States which has the opposite of socialized labor laws. There has always been a strong confrontational atmosphere between unions and management. How did the US resolve that problem? It eliminated unions.
The Costa Ricans may or may not succeed in their efforts to create a fair and comfortable environment for citizens with socialized medicine and worker protection laws. I hope they do. There is no alternative anywhere else. The US is certainly no model to emulate.
Sprite… I’d agree that there are social and cultural differences between workers in the US and Costa Rica. But on a personal level I’ve always been the type to treat everyone with respect, even if for some reason they felt they didn’t deserve such attention. Inviting our gardener/caretaker into the house when we first built it and had moved in was a real eye opener! It was as if he was afraid to come past the doorway… then having him sit at our dinning room table and offering him a cold drink and some cookies… it was as if he was afraid I was going to kill him and harvest a kidney! LOL He’s warmed up to us now and seems to spend a lot of time making sure our place is always taken care of. He and his family are always welcome at our home, and we’re lucky to have such wonderful people in our lives!
I hope the confrontational attitude that exist in many labor relationships never occurs here in Costa Rica, but I for one can only do my part, other folks I’m sure might not have the same concern!
I am also very egalitarian in my attitude towards others. WhenI was younger and visited Cuba often as a fluent Spanish speaker, I noted that the Cubans always presented me as “una persona sencilla”..a simple person. That means something entirely different in Spanish than it does in English. It means a modest person who has no guile or an overblown sense importance about him.
Latin culture engenders respect for superiors and they have a different definition of what superiors means. They respect older people. We do not so much. They respect the sanctity of family much more than we do as well.
But they carry this too far for my tastes when they assign a superior rank to some one with much wealth. Add to that the perception that economic class is fixed and permanent and you have an unbalanced amount of respect shown to people who are wealthy. In the States, we also define a persons value by wealth but we have the illusion that anyone can become wealthy, hence we don;t exaggerate respect for the rich as they are basically just like us…only richer.
The maids have homes, families and probably even a life outside of their “jefe’s home’
Why should they have to work 15 hours days because someone requires them to clean up after the 8PM evening meal? If, you can come to a fair arrangement with a maid, who doesn’t object to longer hours, at ‘double time’ for the extra hours, that’s fine.
You are getting cheap labor, and should be prepared to pay a fair wage as with any other employee.
Would the gardener stay late to cut your lawn, every week, with no increase in his salary? Or would you, in your previous life?
Including a free lunch just doesn’t ‘cut it’.Are these domestic laborers working by the hour or salary? If by the hour, more is better? Why skip time and a half and jump to double time?
I would guess they do both, depending on the arrangements they have made. For a full time maid, I would presume, maybe incorrectly, the it a weekly or monthly salary. For someone who come in, 2 days a week, possibly by the hour.
More is better, IF, the maid has a choice! For ‘live in’ domestics, all over the world, they are often taken advantage of. And it may be time and a half, but, again, pressure may be put upon the domestic worker, and this was what the new ruling was designed to stop.
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