Dismayed!

REACTING TO the story in the Metroplus (July 26) on maids services titled "'Maid' to order?" from readers, Geeta Padmanabhan writes:

The purpose of the piece was to bring to light the availability of such services and point out the grey areas of this unorganised business. However, a group of employers called in to protest that the piece had just scratched the surface of this 'scam', when the allegedly unethical practices of some exploitative, unscrupulous agents should have been thoroughly exposed.

The sum of their accusations:

1. Some agencies adopt a highly questionable business model. When an employer appeals for help the agency sends a trained maid after a down payment. This maid will not stay beyond a few weeks no matter how well she is treated. She leaves knowing she will get a placement at once (with a hike in wages) and the gleeful agency gets another packet of service charges. The agents presumably run a successful business by rotating a handful of trained maids.

2. The replacements who come after a delay ("Ma'am, someone who will fit in with your stipulations is hard to find...") are usually raw hands or of inappropriate behaviour and the employer cannot or will not accept them. The crafty agents, of course, know this. By this time the grace period for replacements is over and the employer has to cough up another deposit.

3. The agencies do not maintain thoroughly-vetted background records of those seeking to be placed. The antecedents of migrants to the city are not properly checked. And most often there is no police verification. There are proven cases of servants with fictitious addresses knocking off household goods.

4. Employers cite specific instances to prove how maids who are happy with them are being lured back by the agencies, how agencies demand a cut from the maids when they go to report their holidays, how when thefts are reported no action is taken against errant employees and how the very same ones are placed in the city itself!

5. There are agents who do not issue receipts for the amount charged for their service.

"We treat the maids well," they chorus. "Why are they lazy, disloyal and disinclined to work? And now because of agency proliferation we cannot employ anyone without their connivance."

Why were these charges kept under wraps all this time? Invariably the reason given is: "We are very busy which is why we need help in the first place."

It is evident there is a substantial demand for efficient, well- trained cooks and housemaids. And, apparently as in any other trade unscrupulous elements have stepped in. So what can be done?

Mr. Seshadri, a Bangalore-based employer, offers these suggestions.

For the employers:

1. Insist on interviewing the maid without the agent and satisfy yourself that she is suitable.

2. Verify the bio-data that lies with the agency and check its genuineness. This is time well-invested.

3. Once the maid joins the household see that your valuables are locked up and your conversation remains private. Get wise to the fact that your maid lives under a different value system.

For the Government:

Young boys and women hunting jobs as household assistants gravitate to these agencies as they have no means of contacting potential employers.

Many are from areas outside the city. To enforce discipline in this venture, the government could set up Institutes like the ITI and give them basic training in housework and hygiene. This is after all an appointment that fetches 2,000 bucks with food and facilities.

At the end of the training the maid or the boy should be issued a certificate (Certified House Maid/Boy?) of eligibility for work. Once trained the maid gets a year's contract for the job.

Or, there can be a probationary period after which the contract is drawn and only then is the agency paid its due.

Now the major issue. The agencies:

Either they should be brought under a government regulatory mechanism or the agencies themselves should form an Association for self-regulation.

A caveat should ensure that the agencies maintain a service record for the employees registered with them in a verifiable format and make it readily available for the employers' scrutiny.

Charges or not, it is to the advertised agency that an employer turns when she is in need of household help.

Even as I write this, there is a call from a gentleman in Nungambakkam asking for information about a reasonably good agency.

He knows of their dubious ways but needs to find help at once.

As social worker Jayalakshmi, who is starting an agency asserts, "With good management from all sides it is possible to run this as a reliable, professional service with corporate efficiency."

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