4.6. Working Conditions

‘‘I would wake up at 3.30 in the morning. There is no set time to finish work but have to be at work by 5. We had to eat our breakfast seated by the side of the road. It was hell. When we are taken to the sites, the Engineer decides to keep us for longer. If the Engineer is good, then we are fine.’’ - Gampaha, male, returnee, 33 years, single.

‘‘It said eight hours of work but we would work for 12 hours. Sometimes till midnight. We would work from ten in the morning till 4 in the afternoon. And again, from midnight to eight in the morning. We had a number of deliveries to cover each day and we would work to a shift and they would pay us for meeting that target within a specific time period. time. Even when it was difficult, we would have to reach the target somehow. When there are no deliveries, we would have to do other work like packing.’’ - Kandy, male, returnee, 38 years, married.

While there were instances where the male workers were paid the promised overtime payments for working excessive hours, not being compensated for these extra hours, as promised, was a common complaint raised by them.

For women, however, unless under exceptional cases where they were experienced and opted to travel and find work on what they termed as ‘open’ visas or worked in the formal sector (i.e. hospitals, schools), the working hours and general conditions of work were non-negotiable.

For many domestic workers, the day started early morning, with the preparation of breakfast for the family members taking priority over all else. The chores to be completed during the day included, washing and ironing of clothes, dusting and mopping of floors, cleaning the bathrooms on a daily basis and preparing the meals for the family. Generally, the day starts between 4.305.00 a.m. with only a few managing to sleep ‘late’ till 6.00 a.m. The work hours generally stretch up to 11.00 p.m. and beyond. While some were afforded a ‘break’ of about an hour, many were not afforded this.

‘‘They had all the facilities. I had to look after an old ‘mother’. I would cook and clean and look after her. When I go to sleep it would be around 11 or 12 at night and wake up at 5 in the morning.’’ - Gampaha, Returnee female, 47 years.

Women have come to see such long working hours as the norm. Very few complained and many appeared to tolerate such hours, citing that they had come to work and earn a living. But limits to such long working hours do exist: when queried about ‘peak’ times when excessive working hours were necessitated, almost all former domestic workers and some of the men cited Ramadan as a particularly difficult period to work in. Among women, only a fortunate few received a little over 4 hours of sleep a day.

‘‘During Ramazan, there is a lot of work to do. On normal days, I wake up at 5 in the morning and go to sleep at 12 or 1 and on Ramazan days, sometimes we are up the whole time.’’ - Kurunegala, female, returnee.

The long working hours and the exceptionally heavy workloads during Ramadan though viewed as difficult and unbearable, were also tolerated. Apart from a few women citing that visitors would give them some money on their departure, the men and women were not compensated in any way for the additional work they carried out during this labour-intensive period.

4.6. Working Conditions

Although at the outset, migrant workers stated that their working conditions were good, apart from excessive working hours, they were also saddled with multiple tasks. Although women were clearly sent for a particular type of work, they would also have to take on additional work, but for the same wages. For instance, Nirmala (name changed) was recruited to look after the