Where did the 'HouseBoy' thread go?

[ifancyashandy]

I went away for a while, was reading from page 25 to catch up and clicked on 'next page and pfft...all gone.

What did I miss?

Buzz,i am sure that there are Western Expatsthat have treated there housemaid/boy as you say,but having lived here since i was 8,have never come accross it myself.Yes,i know would happen behind closed doors,but most my friends housemaids i have known as llong as them and chat to them when i go round.Also is house maids romour network,so word soon passes round and Cynthia(my housemaid)would tell me.Think also good housemaid highly sought after and hastle to go through sponsershipe paper work.Also if know good with your children why would you send home for no good reason

eh? so you think that expats in foreign countries should pay domestic staff UK wages?

What's wrong with paying them the local wage for that job?

Unless you're talking about the handful of expats that get paid in foreign currency??

But even then it's not as simple as "well I get my wage in US$'s/£'s so I'll pay my staff the UK minimum wage" Expats move on so from having more money than they're able to spend to risk then suddenly finding themselves with nothing, or having to maintain a standard of living that simply isn't possible on a local wage. There's stiff "competition" for expat domestic work as they do often pay slightly more than the normal rates of pay for same domestic work. Some domestic staff are lucky and manage to get work with the new incomers, but not all.

I don't think that usig the UK minimum wage is a legitimate measure of a fair wage in a different economy.

Surely the economy in the country used as an example would not be able to support a cleaner being paid more than a doctor for example?? Why would people in that country then go to university to become doctors if they could earn far more as a housemaid?

I don't see a problem with employing domestic staff as long as they are paid fairly, treated fairly and respected as an employee not a status symbol or an excuse to patronise.

I have worked as a cleaner in this country when I have been made redundant before.
The money was minimum wage and fed us.
The attitude towards me as a cleaner was awful though. It was assumed by my employers that I was of lower intelligence because of the job that I was doing.

That is an attitude that is prevalent in lots of countries I think and that is what needs to change.

Who are we to decide how often an employee should see their family for example. The op in the original thread stated that her "houseboy" was only allowed to go home once every three years.
That is awful, that is what needs to change.

Dont know exactly the situation with ops Houseboy,but some do go home every three years,but they go for 3 months.My housemaid goes home twice a year,when we go.She goes for 2 weeks.We pay her air fair.Better all round as then i am not housemaid less for 3 months.Some though dont want to go home as often as there is pressure on them to bring presents.Does cost a fortune for them.Relatives shun them if dont bring tampax,wash powder,soap etc.What am trying to say is unless live here and know situation,cant judge

Insight

I find it interesting that just because you are being and supposedly your friends are bding kind to your maid means it is ok to hire maids under the medieval employment practices which exist in some parts of the world.

You are still benefiting from a system which is inherently corrupt. This sort of corruption brought about the boycott of South Africa and the end of apartheid.

Some maids like construction labourers are brought to the UAE etc by fixers who for a fee bring them into the country with promises of work as secretaries for example then they end up indebted with the fixer's fee (illegal) in work as domestic help, (cleaners, maids, doing other people's ironing in homes offices and malls, wherever ) and that is just a part of the abuse. oh their passports taken off them till they have paid their way etc.

A lot of westerners choose to hire a contract company to do their cleaning. This system is rife with the sort of abuse I have mentioned. Or you can get a catalogue from a hire agency and pick you own maid kinda like you can get a mail order bride. it really is a luck of the draw who you get for better and for worse.

maid banned&st=0 this thread makes good reading if you are curious of how the maid thing can go sour even when you are a nice employer. And gives insight into the mindset of lots of expats out there.

It is indentured slavery.

dittany, the employer is earning a uk wage because it is what they would be able to earn in their home country. Those countries would not be able to attract their skills unless companies paid competitive international rates. This makes sense because the employer is only posted to that country for a limited period of time and will have to return to the UK where they will rely on proceeds of the expatriate salary they were earning - eg. savings, car, furniture etc.

Workers employed by expats are often the best paid in these countries. There is no need to pay these workers uk wages as their cost of living is no where near the cost of living here. In real terms they would likely end up earning more than their employer?

Apart from those that taught in the International School as teachers (teaching assistants were paid in local money) I didn't meet any expats earning "foreign" wages. They all earned local wages

Yes they risk having nothing on a low wage, but it's a hell of a lot easier to go from a low wage to a low wage than from an extortionately high one to a low (or no) wage.

And when I say extortionate I mean just that. When we lived in Zimbabwe had we converted our joint wage (when I had my better paid job) we would have been earning £187 a month between us. (exH was a teacher in a local school, I worked as a TA in the international school for a while). Both full time wages. No "top-ups"

We lived comfortably on that wage, we didn't have a huge house, in fact it was a tiny 2 bedroom cottage which would probably have fitted in its entirety into my rather modest terraced lounge and dining room that I have now. but we were comfortable (and had we not had a wedding to pay for an a visa and airfares to buy we would have been much better off). We certainly weren't flush, but very comfortable (until I lost my job - but that's an entirely different thread ).

Then a few years ago, when the Zim$ crashed - we used to sent out £40 a month to my exFIL - he lived in his own (large) 3 bedroom house, but that £40 maintained the entire house, and bills, and food, and left money over for him to make his frequent trips to the village

To have paid domestic staff a UK wage would be crazy out there.

I didn't read the original thread - so I have no idea of the details/country being referred to. I am just stating my experiences from the country I lived in where having domestic staff was the norm for both expats and locals alike if they earned anything more than a very low wage.

While many domestic staff coveted the jobs with the expats because of the slightly higher wages, equally many were too scared to take on on because of the job insecurity. At least with someone local that lives there permanently, unless they lost their job and as long as you did the job well you knew you're job was pretty much safe for the long term. No worries about when your employer was going to pack their bags and leave, leaving you out of a job and hoping that if someone came to replace them then they'd take you on.

in the UAE the wages maids are paid makes it impossible for them to do anything with their one day off.

the minimum wage per month is something like 750 dirhams plus food and board. £1 = @5 DHMs.

So bragging on here that you pay a maid 2x or 3x the local minimum wage still puts them in a position where they can't do anything with their days off.

buzziing off to read those links, meanwhile, please tell me how my not employing domestic workers will help the situation in any way.

I see from the last few posts we're talking about a different part of the world, where foreign expats on huge wages are common - so perhaps my experiences/views are different.

for some perspective on how far 750 dhms goes in the UAE, it is the shopping bill a week for many an expat family assuming 2 adults two children is around 500 dhms give or take a hundred.

buzzing - you see that means nothing saying that the minimum wage is the equivalent of £150 - without knowing the cost of living. (and I confess to knowing absolutely SOD ALL about the cost of living in the UAE).

No,Cynthia paid her air fare,her sponser alot of money to come here to work as a maid.If I turn round to her and say we are not going to employ her,we will send you home or find another job(which she is free to do any time she wants)she would be devistated.Her mother and sister rely on her income.So if all of us stopped employing these people,what happens to them.No jobs back home,or else they wouldnt pay to be here.

dittany - a lot of expats here aren't on expat packages. My husband isn't. If I paid said employee minimum wage, it would be more than he earned.

I fail to see how anything I'm doing is exploiting her. Perhaps you should spend some more time living here before you throw accusations like that around. She is very very well off for a nanny here. She has legal protection due to her contract, all the protection she would get if employed in the UK, she's just paid less, albeit well more than the average wage here.

Its hugely simplistic to suggest that expats should pay the salary of their home country -if I was employing a nanny in my home country, I would expect someone ofsted registered, with lots of qualifications etc. She has none of these things, so I wouldn;t pay someone in her position a similar salary. Instead, I pay her what I paid in the UK to send my child to nursery. That's 2 times what she earned in her last job, and she gets benefits as well.

If you really want to see exploitation here, go and look in some of the garment factories where the clothes you buy in the UK are made. Or in the toy factory down the road where the lovely wooden toys we buy so willingly in the UK are made. These people work in truly horrific conditions, and, quite frankly, most UK stores and consumers don't give a crap so long as they can go on buying their primark bargains. Its not just primark, even stores like M&S have been caught doing the same thing.

ahh x posts with you

My parents lived in Zimbabwe - Mount Pleasant My brother went to St Johns in Borrowdale....

I don't know first hand about the cost of living in the UAE so can't tell what it means to earn £150-£450. I do know that in a place like even South Africa, £450 would be a decent wage.

But your average housemaid doesnt shop at Spinneys

ARGHHHHHHHH St Johns - I'm sorry I can't talk to you any more......still I suppose it's marginally better than St Georges or Churchill

My heart is sworn to PE - The Tigers rule - sorry

OMG - I've just realised - they live just round the corner from where I used to live . We lived in Avondale West, I once housesat for a family in Mount Pleasant.............exH proposed in there house on New Years eve >

Agree with Dittany re the wage thing. Friend is on 90k in Dubai, living the good life, tax free, sure hecmust have servants.

He is being allowed to profit massively, earn beyond his wildest dreams, but I bet his servants are barely making a living.

That is the point - massive inequality when it comes to sharing the bonanza.

Maybe I have to live there to understand though - although I wouldn't. You can't even shag on the beach.

Ok, just responding to the last few posts about 2 to 3 times salary not being enough. She's paid just over 1k per month. She doesn't have to pay for food (we provide her with food and a kitty for food on the days for when she doesn't fancy eating with us), accomodation or bills. I think that's a not unreasonable amount of money, when you factor in the cost of living here. And that's takehome pay - we also register her for tax and NI equivalent.

That is really a lot of money here - she saves half, spends half the rest (she loves the cinema and clothes) and sends half the rest home.

Oh, I'm not in the ME, by the way, in Thailand.