to think £516 per MONTH for a six day week is exploitation?

[hesteria]

Found this on an expat forum today; here's the OP's post:

"Is anyone paying this [£516] for a live in maid inclusive of food, 5 1/2 days per week, very occasional baby sitting, private sector hols, own religious holidays, plus annual flight home and other legal requirements.

Yes or no answers appreciated, just trying to guage the market. TIA"

Most posters thought the OP was being ridiculously generous.

Full thread:
expatwoman.com/forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=122411&Page=1

bedubabe... try Peckham.... Ok so personal security not great, but transport links slight better, and fewer cockroaches!

expatwoman is nothing, NOTHING I tell you,muhahahah!

Not when there are Yahoo groups to flame you... direct into your inbox!!

Expatfocus/Exchange was were where I hung out, cos they both had Egypt forums, but the pages where the sadly deluded, "I'm thinking of marrying an egyptian 20 yo 'tour guide/scuba diver/taxi driver, please tell me about how to get it past the Foreign Office...." used to keep me away for fear that I'd actually eat my own lap top.

Even between Egypt and the Gulf, it's a world away, I'm sure. But I can't get my head around living in other even more remote African nations...

Expats in Alex was hysterical, until they were forced to moderate it... for fear of police action/legal trouble.... that was soo scathing on the Govt it was entertainment all in itself. mind you it was a site set up and run and posted to by all those that hated living there!

My kinda site ahh, was hoping to link, but it seems to have died....

"..OP's currently backed into an expat forum corner, being napalmed and snarled at by those 'living the dream' "

Yep- starting to sweat on the other board. I really shouldn't go there at all. When I lived there I had to ban myself from all discussion about "maids"- I just got too annoyed.

My point is that I don't think it's logical to say that you should pay someone a lower wage than you would expect yourself, simply because they come from a poorer country than you do- bearing in mind that both of you live in a country with a HIGH cost of living.

For example: apply this to the UK (same-ish cost of living as Dubai). Suppose I want someone to clean my house/do my accounts/look after my children in London. Am I allowed to say, "Right, Europeans will be looking for too much money. I'll hire a Filipina/Indian/Malaysian person, and pay them 50p an hour. Sure isn't that a fortune where they come from? Shouldn't they be grateful? Wouldn't they be able to support a family of twenty on 50p an hour in their home country?"

No, and obviously no. Because it's wrong to take into account the economy of a person's home country when deciding what to pay them in another country.

Whether or not it's "a fortune where they come from" is really immaterial. You're not living in the place where they come from. So you're not supporting local people.

Am I explaining this clearly? Sometimes I think I'm too wound up about the whole thing to get my point across.

It's more about the going rate for the work being done, rather than who's doing it. It's nothing to do with whether they're Malaysian, Filipina or French. That's the standard salary for a maid.

The reason you don't get the French applicants is because a) Europeans don't go out to the ME to work as maids because if they wanted to they could work in Europe so the applicants you get are foribly non-Europeans, b) Europeans IN the ME think that being a maid is beneath them so again non-European applicants, c)the wage being offered, which is the going rate, is a fortune to those appplicants who are applying and doing the jobs. 95% of the time they're sending the money back to their families.

If you've ever done live in work you'll know that actually you spend very little of your salary. When I was a live in nanny I had my food, accomodation and basic toiletries paid for by my employers. That meant my salary was pocket money for me to spend or save as I pleased. The short time I spent working in an environment similar to the ME I saved virtually all my salary because there wasn't anything I wanted to spend it on.

It's the same anywhere in the world - local variation in salaries is not based on where you come from.

but hesteria - if you had a live in cleaner (in the UK) , and paid for her food as well would you pay her as much as you would for a cleaner than lived in her own home and had to pay those things herself.

Actually by paying a member of staff way over the odds you could be artificially distorting the local economy with your 1st world income, and making things more difficult for the locals. I believe that you when in Rome you should do as they do, maybe with some developed work cultural norms thrown in- ie don't bet your maid or keep her in a cupboard even if that is the cultural norm. If you can afford to pay a whole lot more, then employ more people. As others have said further down, in a developing country there is usually no welfare state and employing people is their pathway out of poverty. So you should employ as many people as you can afford to, on the local going rate.

And of course you have to give a notional value to the perks before deciding what a person is paid. Eg- for an au pair in this country, you are housing and feeding her, saving her at least £80/week for room rent+ £30/week for food+ say £20/week bills= £130 + plus what you give her in pocket money + whatever else you pay for for her- language classes etc... Which is not so bad for a gap year really.

It's not about disposable income, which others have pointed out that £516/month may well be the monthly disposable income for many average families in the UK (it's more than ours as a family of 6 btw).

Actually expat wages will always be differentiated by nationality in practice. Say the basic rate for a job is 100 and there's 20% wiggle room with negotiation i.e. if you bargin hard you can persuade the employer to pay you 120.

Say for a wage of 100 you can save 30 and the amount you can save is not based on nationality (actually wrong for various reasons but it doesn't matter).

If 30 represents the average annual wage in my home country I may well accept the basic 100 and not argue for more money.

If 30 is a small amount to save in your home country then you'll be fighting for the full 120 (i.e. to save 50). You're much more likely to say 'I won't take the job unless you pay me 120'.

The person from the richer country ends up being paid more because they bargin harder even if there is absolutly no racism at play.

Obviously in real life there is a lot of racism at play as well that makes this worse.

(ok my economist nature is getting the better of me but I see this happening in practice!) :o

And OP I'm still going back to whether 14k untaxed is an unreasonable salary? That's approx 20k taxed surely. Not bad going for a maid whether in the UK or elsewhere.

I see racism acting the other way: I see white people feeling guilty and feeling sorry for their employees thus paying a distorting amount more along with unexpectedly good conditions. Often the job you offer is the best job that person WILL EVER HAVE IN THEIR LIFE so it's decent to pay over the going rate. On our last posting we instantly doubled the pay of the staff we'd taken on but it was still only seventy quid a month -- two and a half times the minimum wage, including all fuel and housing. They wouldn't have got those pay and conditions anywhere in local employment, And we couldn't afford more as we employed between four to seven staff at any one time. Like duchesse says, better to take on more staff than pay one or two the western wage. That's four to seven families being fed, housed, educated, clothed, married off and so on.

Local employees will often do anything to work for a western family. Nobody feels great about it, or like some kind of saint. A lot of people feel pissed off about it -- why can't local employers treat people with a bit more respect and decency, then there wouldn't be this distortion.

It's terrible because it reinforces that gross image of the white person as saviour. Or soft touch. Or any of those terrible stereotypes. Unless you've been an expat in a TW region it's hard to understand how the realities of differentiation work in practice.

"The person from the richer country ends up being paid more..."

This happens in the maid hierarchy in SE Asia. Philippina maids are highest paid, and look down on the Indonesian girls, and finally there are the Sri Lankan maids who aren't looked down on by their employers, but by the Philippina girls and the Indonesian girls alike.

That's how it used to work anyway. It's not nice to read is it? Makes you take a sharp intake of breath and think, surely the expats are in the wrong somewhere, surely there's white racism at play somewhere. No there isn't. It's certainly not nice to read about Imagine what it's like to see it and live in it.

And for the record, I hated having staff, and wish I'd never been in that position. But when you are, you have to employ people, employ them decently, treat them fairly, treat them with respect. And for a sideline, and always clean your own loo. No matter what your situation, it's nobody's job to clean up your poo.

A chalet girl in a posh French resort will be earning less than that, as will an au pair in London
Given that living, food etc is all included, the salary is just 'pocket money'
And £500-odd a month for just spending money is a darn sight more than lots of us have left over at the end of every month to spend on ourselves!

Appletrees - in the time I've spent in SE Asia (only travelling, not living), I've heard those kind of statements quite a lot.

Have you ever seen the fights in Peckham? No white people involved at all but there is definite racism involved.

I like your theory about the loo - I do mine too.

Bedubabe, you may be right. I've already said I'm rethinking how I feel about the issue, based on replies.

I think it's taking it a little too far, however, to take into account accommodation and living expenses and extrapolate a figure of 14K. After all, I'm looking at this from the perspective of the employer. It's not really going to cost the family £14K to employ the cleaner. Most houses in Dubai already have "maids' rooms". I can't really believe that having an extra person in a family home is going to use up £8K worth of electricity/bills/toiletries/food etc. Even visa charges and health insurance only add up to about 400 pounds per year.

In addition to this, the very fact that accommodation is provided can be a bit of a poisoned chalice for the worker in question, since usually, from what I've seen, this means that she is constantly on duty, without clear rules being set as to when her working day is finished.

There's also the separate issue of a lack of independence, a restricted life, having to ask to use the telephone/internet/TV, all of which stem from living with an employer as domestic staff. It's not as if the staff are being provided with an "expat package" with lovely free independent accommodation. But perhaps that's going off-topic too much.

Believe me, accomodation was certainly not a poisoned chalice for my staff.

depends on country and what they are doing and not of the nationality of the person.

I know lots of people who have had 'staff' in various countries.

My dm's family - staff were from her own country (she was an expat) - were not paid much but given a (seperate) home and education for the kids (the big selling point).

Best friend from the maldives - their staff was paid a minimum amount but the child was brought up with friend and was sent to uni overseas.

Some other family - staff was given own home - paid a small amount - but their children were given a uni education.

Dad when in east africa - a housekeeper from neighbouring country. She's given board/lodging and small salary- her kids brought over when ill and given medical treatment. Now he's not living in that country the housekeeper (hiv sufferer) is sent money every month for hiv retrovilas.Yes she was hiv when with dad and was carer for his daughter with no issues at all.

The worst conditions I've seen are in the UK. Have friend from overseas- hire and fire people at will but I see why - she's got them sleeping in a partitioned area of the house - low wages.

I think there are two issues - pay the local wage so if some people are from poorer countries and send money home and become rich there - well good on them. The second is how they are treated. If in all honesty you don't think you can pay staff from overseas a fair wage which means enough for them to live in that country and money for holidays and return home - then don't employ people from overseas.

The second issue is how they are treated. And that's another issue.

Not a poisoned chalice on this side as my maid has clear working hours and doesn't have any travel time to work. My maid also has her own tv and there's wireless internet which she has access to via a laptop we've lent her. I'd expect her to ask to use the phone for international calls but that's because I'm not expecting her to pay it back. However, as I said maid treatment varies widely and that's not the point here.

I don't think it's at all unreasonable to add on the actual costs the maid would have to pay for accommodation. If you don't want to do that then stop using the 'cost of living argument' and talk about whether the salary the maid is getting is a reasonable amount of disposable income to get at the end of the month.

As many people have said on here - 500 is a lot of disposable income. If you're saving to send home to a third-world country it's a fortune.

Oh and our visa costs are way over 400 a year. More like 1000 but I wasn't including that to be honest

£500 is a good bit of disposable income depending on the country. If, of course, they are working stupid hours they'd have loads of disposable income as they don't have any time to spend it.

If the staff are from countries with a very favourable exchange rate they could even make a bit if they send money home.

I think what sticks in lots of mind's is the documentary on how staff are treated in the UK. I think that's what make people nervous.

hesteria - the family will be paying for the maid's room within the costs of rent/mortgage (or tied up capital). The extra square metres do not come for free!

We own a chambre de bonne in Neuilly which is now rented out as the DSSs no longer have a nanny. We get nearly EUR 600 in rent for it per month. When the DSSs' nanny lived there, her electricity bills were also paid for her, and she did her laundry in the main apartment, plus she was, of course, fed exactly the same food as the rest of the family, so at least EUR 100 of food per week (probably a lot more). All those are real costs met by the family on behalf of the domestic employee, before salary and social security.

It's alright girl, those expat fora are a nightmare sometimes, I find my hackles going up when i see some of them myself!

FWIW, there is a lot of right in what you say, if you are prepared to hire someone where you are, then they should somehow earn what someone in your country would earn... I do see what you are trying to say.

I think the way to look at it is proportion. If you are paying an amount that is proportionately an amount to put them at an equivalent level to your own home country, then that has to be fair somehow.

The arses that say it'll cost X but you can get away with Y are the ones that will have them cleaning shit and treat them badly. Look at them as foul people, and dismiss them from your mind, they are not worth your blood pressure. Comments like that show what class of human being they are.

Now, log out of the expat forum girl! Go get a bevvy!

Thanks lots and lots. Your post cheered me up. I'll take your advice!