Cárdenas Escutia, Carlos Eduardo; (2024) Righting historical wrongs: Transforming household workers’ rights in Mexico. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

In Mexico, over 2.5 million people rely on paid domestic work for their livelihoods, with over 90% of them being women. Over the past century, Mexican household workers have strived to vindicate their social and economic contributions, as well as their status as workers entitled to a full set of labour rights. Nonetheless, their interests and demands have often gone unnoticed. In recent years, however, they have secured significant changes in their legal status. This leads to the central question of my research: 'Why now?' To address this question, my thesis explores how legal reform for the sector was accomplished by examining the factors that were instrumental in achieving favourable policy outcomes. It traces four key moments of reform: a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 2018, a series of labour code reforms in 2019, the establishment of a professional minimum wage in 2020, and the ratification and implementation of the International Labour Organisation Convention on Domestic Workers in 2021. I examine the interactions between contexts of broader political change and shifts in the political opportunity structure, the emergence of autonomous organisations, coalition building, and the role of a favourable international context. I ground my analysis on the evidence gathered via in-depth interviews with key informants. Past and present household worker leaders, activists, unionists, public officials, and scholars are among them. Furthermore, I engaged with documentary sources such as congressional debate records, legislative initiatives, public reports, policy papers, impact studies and journalistic articles. Ultimately, my thesis provides an analytical framework and empirical narrative of how significant changes to a discriminatory legal framework were secured, and Mexican household workers’ labour rights expanded. It casts light on the paths, actors, and conditions that can help translate their recent legal reform achievements into effective rights.

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