“First, it has the effect of forcing our women to stay home and take care of the household instead of working.” Kaipat is the deputy secretary of labor who is on leave running for the Senate.
It is unacceptable to many people to hire a maid from an impersonal company, Kaipat said.
“Women do not want to entrust their homes and their children to some employee of a company. They want the household help that they have had for years and the people that they trust. The drafters of this federal statute were all men,” she added.
“They apparently did not care about the rights of women to be in the workplace, and they did not understand the important part that women play in our workforce here in the commonwealth.”
According to Kaipat, “The no-maids policy also discriminates against some of our longest-staying foreign workers. Women who have been on our islands taking care of our children and our elderly since the 1980’s do not deserve this back-of-the-hand treatment. The foreign workers who help our children and elderly are valued employees. They have long-standing relationships with our families and with our commonwealth. They have done nothing to deserve this harsh result.”
No similar limitation was put on occupations typically occupied by men, Kaipat pointed out.
If necessary, she added, the Commonwealth Legislature may be asked to allow households to be non-profit sole proprietorships in order to continue to hire their long-time houseworkers directly and not through a manpower service.
“We spent some considerable effort in this administration cleaning up the labor situation with manpower services,” Kaipat said. “It is much better for our foreign workers to deal directly with the families for whom they work and not be subject to manpower services which add cost without adding any benefit to the community or to the workers.”
