nr-mexico-grants-domestic-workers-labor-rights_.htm Mexico's Congress on Tuesday voted to grant cleaners, cooks, gardeners, caretakers and other domestic workers basic labor rights like limited work hours and paid vacations. The new legislation will benefit more than two million people - most of them impoverished women. Mexico's Congress Votes to Expand Domestic Workers' Labor Rights Mexico has Expanded Domestic Workers' Labor Rights Domestic Workers' Labor Rights Expanded mexart.gif Paulina Villegas - New York Times go to original
May 17, 2019 mexcook.jpg 600 x 358 A domestic worker, Ignacia Ponciano, preparing lunch at the house where she has worked for more than 30 years in Mexico City. (Photo: Rodrigo Arangua/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images) ------------

Mexico's Congress voted to grant the country's cleaners, cooks, gardeners, caretakers and other domestic workers basic labor rights like limited work hours and paid vacations on Tuesday, in a momentous victory for a historically disenfranchised part of society.

The new legislation will benefit more than two million people - most of them impoverished women - who up until now were not recognized as part of the country's formal labor market, with its benefits and protections.

The bill was approved unanimously by the Mexican Senate on Tuesday, after the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house, also passed it unanimously on April 30.

Congress is controlled by allies of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who was elected last year on promises that he would defend workers, combat inequality and lift up the poor.

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