Corporate calls to work overtime take home labour for granted

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Distractions are a constant in our age, while productivity is that gleaming arch on the horizon that seems farther away the closer we get. And every few months, leaders of India Inc chime in to advocate longer work hours in service of this hallowed goal.

The most recent was the chief of L&T, who seemed to suggest that working 90 hours a week, including Sundays, would serve a national cause. This advocacy typically assumes that ‘someone else’ will do employees’ daily chores—running the home, shopping for groceries, cleaning, cooking, taking care of children and elders, packing lunch boxes for office-goers, and more. In urban India, a country where domestic labour remains cheap and weakly regulated, that someone else is likely to be a ‘maid,’ ‘cook’ or ‘help,’ usually a woman.

Some weeks ago, X was alight with arguments after a techie suggested that young folks “get a maid" and gadgets to boost productivity and “increase your earning potential." There are many workers for whom 70-90-hour work weeks are routine—those who work in the informal sector without minimum-wage guarantees, defined contracts, fixed hours or social security protection. Think of domestic workers, gardeners, watchmen and drivers. In India, a vast majority of workers work in the unorganized sector, where work conditions and their rights remain abysmal.

Domestic work, especially, is grossly underpaid. News reports still surface with alarming regularity of the abuse, confinement and exploitation of such workers. Most of them are poor migrants from disadvantaged communities and their dignity is often a non-issue for employers.