- A Shanghai woman who set 20 ‘strict’ rules for her employee has sparked a fairness debate on social media
- By 2025 it is estimated 5 million people will work in China’s home service industry
The demands made on Chinese housemaids by their employers have triggered a heated debate after a Shanghai woman gave her new employee a list of 20 rules to memorise before she started work.
The new housemaid was required to sleep on the living room floor, change in to special clothes when caring for her employer’s baby, clean floors by hand with just a towel, and refrain from eating garlic.
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The list was leaked and circulated on a number of housemaid groups on WeChat, China’s most popular messaging app, before being posted on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like service, on June 29 where it quickly went viral. The hot trend attracted 140 million people to discuss and comment on the issue.
Yet, others agreed with the employer, leaving comments like, “Actually, these rules are very basic, not immoral or unlawful”, and “I think is reasonable to raise the 20 rules with this high salary, if you cannot accept it then back to apply for the job with 4,000 to 5,000”.
The position was finally taken by a woman, surnamed Wang, who said, “Nowadays it is getting harder to earn money, no pain no gain. Housemaids are here for giving a high quality and friendly service, aren’t we?”
On Monday, Beijing Youth Daily reported the Shanghai Home Service Industry Association as saying the 20 rules were “strict and a rare requirement in the current home service industry, but didn’t contain any discrimination to the housemaid so it is a normal employer’s requirement”.
A 2018 report on China’s home service industry said there were more than 2.5 million people employed in home service work in 2016, and estimated that by 2025 the demand for household service would increase to 5 million.
On June 26, China’s State Council issued guidelines to improve standards in the home service industry. Among the recommendations were the establishment of courses to improve the quality of housemaids in China, the provision of health check services to the workers and the establishment of related laws to improve their working conditions
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