Housekeepers. Everything is chaos. The world is ending. Many people say Brazil is ending first
or it has already ended. But if we were to laugh about anything
during quarantine, it'd be about celebrities
cleaning their homes. Doesn't it warm you heart seeing celebrities
discovering bleach? Gossip websites are like: "Isolated,
Juliana Paes cleans her house." "Adriane Galisteu shows blisters
after cleaning her house." Cleaning is the new
"parked the car at Leblon". "Ana Furtado joined
the team of celebrities that rolled up their sleeves
to clean their houses." Yes, Ana Furtado replaced
even her housekeeper. Simone from the singing duet
Simone & Simaria posted a picture of her calloused hands
after cleaning with #dead. Even Celso Portiolli posted
a video cleaning his toilet. What are you doing? Washing the toilet. Gotta wash everything. Gotta sanitize everything. Sanitizing... Sanitizing... Cleaning... Celso cleaning
is like a "Double Dare". And he's fast,
like he's on a gameshow. I feel sorry for Celso, because he was clearly meant
to replace Silvio Santos, but he won't die. Celso is Prince Charles from SBT. He's waiting
and will probably wait forever. Celso, you better learn
to clean your toilet, because it'll take long. Cleaning is the real "Jeopardy". Seeing celebrities cleaning
makes us remember that while many people complain
about working from home and how hard it is
to work at home, there are also many people
that even in normal times work all the time inside
other people's houses. I'm talking about housekeepers. Being a housekeeper is basically having an office
in someone else's home. People complain a lot
about home office. "It's annoying having to work
with the kid screaming..." What if that kid
wasn't even yours? That's right. And this is the least
of someone's problems. Last week we saw huge protests
in many places against structural racism
and police violence after George Floyd's murder
by a cop in the U.S. These protests are against
the death of black people by the police and against the silence
of many white people before that. In Brazil, cases like George Floyd's
happen daily. For many white people like myself,
like many of you who are watching, it became imperative to support
the fight against racism publicly. Social media flooded
with people quoting Angela Davis and saying honestly
that black lives matter. However, we rarely show
these same lives matter inside our own homes, away from the Internet spotlight. The situation in which
this is clearer is maybe in our relationship
with our housekeepers. The largest professional category
in Brazil, in which 80% of the workforce
is black. During the pandemic, the racism that exists
in this relationship became even more evident. One of the things
quarantine showed us is that domestic work can be
performed with better tools, like good cleaning products
and better gadgets. The sale of upright vacuum cleaners
for example went up 50% since
the beginning of April, showing that when a black woman
performs domestic work, many people don't even notice
it can be easier with quality equipment. When bosses begin to do the work, they think about ways
of making it less tiring. Everyone suddenly found out that
just like a good phone can make your job easier
if you're an influencer, a good vacuum cleaner and a mop
can also make cleaning easier. Mop is that thing used
for washing floors. In Brazil it's just
a fancy way of calling it. "200 reais for this?
Well, it's a mop." Be careful when posting
a selfie with a mop, just saying, because the mop handle
looks like something else, as you can see in this picture
Heloísa Périssé posted. Everybody thought
it was a vibrator, which is another gadget
that sales are up during the pandemic, showing that even husbands
became obsolete. Husbands are like
feather dusters now. It doesn't make any sense,
it just spreads dust. It's a mess,
then you have to use a cloth... Now, people who felt the need
of a good gadget during the pandemic are not the biggest problem. The worst is people who haven't
used bleach during the pandemic. Even worst is who humiliated
those who used it. It's the case of the influencer
Luan Tavares, who not only didn't dismiss
his housekeeper, but also insisted on posting. Finally you're cleaning my bathroom.
Thank God! Every time I come here... I pay you a lot of money
to clean it. You pay me 130 reais for this. Yeah, 130 reais! We're living a crisis.
I'll pay less. I'll go back to 60 reais,
it's great. She'll use a whole bottle of bleach
just for this bathroom. 130 reais, and you'll buy
the cleaning products. Yes, you just watched a vlogger downgrading someone else's work. He thinks 130 is a lot for cleaning,
but his occupation is going to openings, according to himself. Because of people like Luan, who don't care about exposing people
to the virus during the pandemic, the virus has been particularly fatal
for housekeepers. By the way, the first person
who died of Covid in Rio was a worker from this category. Cleonice Gonçalves, 63 years old, lived in Miguel Pereira,
in Rio de Janeiro, and worked for over 10 years
in a house at Leblon. Her boss came back
from Italy feeling sick, but didn't dismiss Cleonice, who was hypertensive
and diabetic. On March 16th, feeling very sick
with fever and body aches, Cleonice was hospitalized
and died a few hours later. She had been infected by coronavirus
at her bosses' house. Housekeepers are among
the professional categories most exposed to coronavirus, just like health professionals
and delivery drivers. That's because
at least 39% of them kept working as usual
during quarantine, leaving their homes every day
on public transportation and having contact
with their bosses. Some moved to their bosses' houses
not to commute. In one hand, they're more protected,
but on the other, they're not necessarily being paid extra,
which also violates their rights. Not to mention that no one likes
to live where they work. And bosses know that because
they're working from home now instead of living
where they work. "Babe, I'll be a little late. I'm at work,
I'll be home by August." Imagine if your boss told you: "Come with me to the mountains.
It'll be great. You're like family. You can watch your soap opera.
What do you think?" But it gets worse, because this exposure
became a public authority decision. In states like Pernambuco, Pará,
Maranhão and Rio Grande do Sul, governments included domestic workers
as essential service on social isolation decrees. Pará and Pernambuco changed
the decree after public pressure, but the other ones didn't. Flávio Dino, c'mon, man... You're kind of Jurassic. Sorry for that joke,
but she's not the momma. Don't be a baby. Because of these decrees, many housekeepers
are working during isolation, just like police officers
or doctors. But the Public Labour Prosecution Office
has recommended that housekeepers should be dismissed with pay for the same period of quarantine
as their employers. That happened thanks
to housekeepers who protested
against exploitation. In the beginning of the pandemic, knowing this would be one
of the most affected categories, they started a campaign
on social media asking people to do the obvious. The union's president in Rio,
Maria Luiza Batista, asked very peacefully. Please give
your housekeepers a break while we're going through
this situation. And don't forget to contribute, paying for the work days, because housekeepers
can't be without their pay and hourly housekeepers
also must get paid for their hours. So I'm asking
all of you employers to be comprehensive
in this moment we're going through. As we could see, employers
weren't so comprehensive. Besides 39% of housekeepers
who were forced to work, another 39% of hourly housekeepers
were dismissed with no pay. In this universe of people
who dismissed their housekeepers, certainly some were also dismissed
and don't have money, but richer families in Brazil
have dismissed their housekeepers with no pay more often
than poorer families. 45% of hourly housekeepers
who work for upper and middle classes were dismissed with no pay. That proves
the old man from Havan is among every rich family
in Brazil. Or at least 45% of them. This is an issue affecting many people.
Many, many people. Over 6 million people work inside
other people's houses, not inside companies
nor in the public sector. Brazil has almost twice the population
of Uruguay working as housekeepers. Housekeepers are so common
that here we have this architectural aberration
called "the maid's room", which is some kind
of closet with a bed. It's even a requirement when rich people
are about to buy a house. With the migration of our elite
to Portugal, construction companies had
to build houses with a maid's room to meet the demands
of Brazilian buyers. Brazilians leave Brazil,
but they take souvenirs: cheese bread, paçoca
and inequality. It doesn't even sound strange
that I'm only talking about women. In this huge category,
women are the overwhelming majority. They represent 97%
of domestic workers in Brazil. Cleaning is still the main form
of inclusion for black women
in the labor market, today, in 2020. Yet housekeepers almost don't have
political representation. They just have one representative
in the National Congress. One, which is Benedita da Silva. Poor thing, imagine what's like being
the ombudswoman of 6 million people. Mind you the Congress
has 32 militaries, 15 evangelical pastors, and 133 businesspeople, which is how they call rich people
with no defined job. 133 businesspeople. The National Congress
is like Faria Lima. People don't even
speak Portuguese there. Jobs everywhere
and many businesspeople... Just like all Brazilian
structural problems, domestic work exploitation
appeared with slavery. A great portion of the 5 million Africans
forcibly brought to Brazil were intended for domestic work, taking care of all the tasks
from the big house, which included feeding the babies
and "serve" the owners sexually. They were called servants. Many died of flogging,
diseases and hunger. There were many fights,
obviously. Some were able to react
and even kill their employers, taking employment justice
in their own hands. The abolition
in the late 19th century was a very debated subject
and became huge articles on newspapers. According to historian
Ynaê Lopes dos Santos, the arguments of people
who defended slavery were basically three. One, economic. They said abolition would cause
a collapse in the economy, since Brazil depended
on coffee exports, that depended on slave labor. It's the famous argument:
"The bills don't add up. The calculations
just don't add up. No way.
Who's gonna pay for that?" The other argument was political. They feared the backlashes
that could rise in Brazil with so many free slaves. This is the famous argument: "You can protest,
but don't disturb the traffic." And there was
the religious argument, always used
by the Catholic Church, that said Africans carried a curse
for being Ham's descendants and that being a slave in the Americas
was part of their evolution process. If you think nobody has
this argument anymore, a few days ago
deputy Marco Feliciano twitted: "Africans are descendants
of an ancestor cursed by Noah. This is a fact. The reason for the curse
is the polemic part. Don't be irresponsible, twitters.
Rsrsrs." That was his laugh at the end. And yes, he's talking about something
related to Noah, and he's saying it's a fact. Yes, Noah, who lived 950 years and built
an arch with all the animals in the world at 600 years old. That's a fact. Yes, just spiders, Noah,
have 30 thousand species. That's a fact. How did he know which termites
were male or female? How did he stop them
from eating the arch? That's the polemic part. But conservative people pro-slavery
also had other surreal arguments. They said slaves should keep
working compulsorily because they wouldn't know
what else to do with their freedom. Others said slavery was important
to populate the country. These arguments were defended
at the House of Representatives, on newspaper columns, by names like writer and politician
José de Alencar, the guy who wrote those shitty books
you had to read at school, those soft porn books. "Peri's honey lips nibbled
Ceci's diaphanous nipples." Holy crap, it's like a wicked
transracial porn, super weird. Even worse than that were his letters
in favor of slavery, in which he stated:
"Without African slavery and the traffic that provided it, America would still be
a vast desert. African race
got into this continent and composed its population
on a large scale. This is one of the beneficial results
of traffic." This is promoting traffic. Not Planet Hemp, bro. This is... This one is even worse. A debate from 1871 that discussed
the Law of the Free Womb: "This idea of free womb
is horrific, gentlemen. I'm not just defending the interests
of rich classes, I'm defending above all
this unfortunate race that wants to be sacrificed." In other words,
Alencar thought that freeing children of slaves would be bad
for slaves themselves, which makes us think why
he wouldn't volunteer to be a slave. Just a little over 100 years after,
in 2012, these arguments were brought back
by a federal deputy, but now related to this category which is the direct heir
of servants. A greater crime
was committed last week: the PEC for housekeepers. If any congressmen
have doubts about that just visit the websites of the domestic Employers' unions. Or visit the websites
of the domestic employers' associations. They're almost unanimous, saying employment
will be massive. And they will all become,
those who actually get a job, hourly housekeepers. Those who don't
will work informally, right? Or they'll hang on Bolsa Família. There are 7 million housekeepers
in our country! I'd never vote against
someone in here. My isolated and solitary "no"
was in favor of this class! Yes, he tries to say "unemployment"
and says the opposite, his sentence
doesn't make any sense, but that's not the worst. The only deputy that voted against
the PEC for housekeepers was the current president
of Brazil. That says more about Brazil
than about Bolsonaro. What's PEC? It was regulated in 2015,
with the Dilma Rousseff's government, and it simply extended
to housekeepers many of the rights observed
in the consolidation of labor laws, created by Vargas in 1943. The CLT wasn't applied, until then,
to domestic work. That's right. Domestic workers only got
the same rights other workers had since the early 40s in 2015. Even then, that didn't happen
without a scandal. Most part of Brazilian elite thought
it was absurd that domestic workers were treated
like domestic workers. This is what the columnist
Guilherme Fiúza wrote in 2013: "If my dear enslaver reader got tired
of their housekeeper's food, they'd better consult their lawyers.
Socialism got to the kitchen, and the spice now
concerns the State." First of all, Fiúza, the spice
has always concerned the State. Brazil was only found
by Portuguese because they were trying to get
faster to India to buy spice. We're here just because
Portuguese people can't live without filling up their plates
with black pepper or whatever. The craziest thing
is that Guilherme Fiúza, Narcisa Tamborindeguy's
ex-husband, thinks that if someone got tired of the housekeeper's spice, they can dismiss her without
any rights or termination. I think Narcisa broke up with him
because elitism has a limit. Fiúza, okay?
That's too much elitism. That's too much slavery. I don't like it. PEC for housekeepers was really
a game changer. In one hand, it demanded domestic workers
had the same rights as any other worker, such as registration,
eight-hour workdays, overtime, vacations,
13th salary... On the other hand,
it annoyed employers who disagreed with the new rules, like José de Alencar. Many desperate employers
tried to explain, saying the law was terrible
for housekeepers themselves. Every law that regulates
a professional situation is good and welcome, but this law didn't take into account
that a family house is not a company. It's not a company making profit, so we can't have the same costs
a company has. In fact, if there's something good
for the employee, time will tell. What comes first?
"I'll have to dismiss." I know a lot of people
who did that. As a housewife,
I'll take the necessary measures. And as a lawyer,
I'll take appropriate caution. This new law is intended
for domestic workers, but it has a trace... It's giving domestic workers
the same benefits workers have. Saying "domestic worker"
is technically incorrect. To me, there are workers
and there are housekeepers. Domestic worker
is a confusing term. This confusion
is actually called "manumission". She thinks it's technically incorrect
calling workers "workers". Regina, I think
it's technically incorrect the job your plastic surgeon did,
with all due respect. Maybe it's also technically incorrect
putting that net bag on your head. That's meant for fruit, okay? It's technically incorrect
going to the street market and ask for net bags
for your hair. Anyway... I love how she says that time will tell
if having rights is good for a human being. Lucky for us that time
has already told us, because Brazil has never had
so many housekeepers as now, 5 years after the PEC. PEC for housekeepers caused an increase
on the formalization of these workers, not unemployment. Besides, when PEC was enacted
for the first time, the number of
registered domestic workers went up to 30%. Three years later, it got to 33.3%,
according to the IPEA. Since then,
this number has dropped. It got to 28.6% in 2018.
What explains that? Brazil's labor reform in 2017,
two years later, that created more gaps for informal work,
including for housekeepers. Besides that,
they kept being stigmatized. In February this year,
which feels like another era, the Economy Minister,
Paulo Guedes, when explaining the dollar surge, criticized the lower dollar
on Lula and Dilma's government, saying it was because
of a huge party of housekeepers. Everybody going to Disneyland, housekeepers going to Disneyland,
a huge party. Wait a minute... Wait, wait. Go to Foz do Iguaçu,
go for a trip to the Northeast, it's filled
with beautiful beaches. Go to Cachoeiro do Itapemirim,
go to Roberto Carlos' city, go travel throughout Brazil. He's disdaining, like... "Go travel throughout Brazil,
okay?" Caco Antibes
is the Minister of Economy. "Go eat your cajuzinho!" I love that he says:
"Go to Roberto Carlos' city." It's called Espírito Santo, okay?
It's a state, actually. He was offensive to housekeepers
and Espírito Santo. But specially to housekeepers, because not even Roberto
goes there anymore. We saw an article,
people are really upset, Roberto. I think he's afraid
of his own statue. I searched for it on Google
and there's a piece like: "Roberto Carlos' statue
can leave Cachoeiro." Even his statue wants to leave
and Paulo Guedes wants to send housekeepers there. This isn't right. This isn't right, Paulo Guedes. But he's also wrong
about his argument because very few housekeepers
can go on vacations, either to Disney or Guarapari. From all occupations,
housekeepers are the lowest-paid. A service that's considered
essential during the pandemic is also the lowest-paid job
in Brazil. And that doesn't make any sense. Or it does, when we remember
that many people defended slavery exactly because slaves were
considered too essential to be free. Now that's why I want to talk to just some of my viewers, my audience that, like myself,
employs a housekeeper. Think about it: would you be able to work
if you needed to spend time and energy on your domestic life,
even after the pandemic is over? Try and make this calculation. How much of your income
and your health depend on the service
of a housekeeper? And how much do you pay her? If we don't make
this calculation, or if we pay her
according to the market, to how much
people are paying them, we're saying her life
is not that important, or that it has little importance, only what she's
brave enough to ask while she's afraid
of unemployment and poverty. We're saying her time, children,
transportation and health are almost worthless. Try asking yourself: What would happen if you suddenly
doubled your housekeeper's pay? We know
what it would mean for her. But what about you?
How many Ubers, how many concerts,
how many dinners it would cost you? Is it impossible
to live without that and value the life of someone
who makes your life easier every day? I know you're not spending much
on Ubers, concerts, dinners and handmade beer now,
and you're probably earning less
than before the pandemic. But probably your housekeeper was one
of your small expenses anyway. If you're starting to understand
how hard it is to clean your own house or your home office, it's not enough recognizing it just
by keeping her pay while she's home. It's not enough avoiding that she takes
a crowded bus or goes to your house. That's the basics. That's protecting her life. It's not enough giving her
all the rights. That's just observing the law. We need to go further. Our request
is very straightforward. Just make that calculation right. Save for something else,
stop spending on other things, but be prepared to pay more,
way more, to your housekeeper, your hourly housekeeper,
your babysitter. You don't even have to post it
for everyone to see. Just pay her better. Because while some people don't even
consider domestic work an actual job, we can say we're demanding more
than an actual job from these women. After all they dedicate their lives
to taking care of other people's lives, and not recognizing that,
valuing them economically, is actually saying their lives
don't matter that much. You can't say you're against racism
and underpay your housekeeper. You can't protest on the streets and keep racism intact
inside your home. This has been Greg News. Good evening.
