Daughter of drowned domestic worker takes fight to ConCourt
The daughter of a domestic worker who drowned after falling into a swimming pool at her workplace has gone all the way to the Constitutional Court to change the law.
When Sylvia Mahlangu’s mother Maria died in March 2012, she was told she could not claim compensation under the Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act because domestic workers in private households were not defined as employees.
In 2015, with the help of the Wits law clinic and the South African Domestic Service and Allied Workers Union, Mahlangu took the case to the high court in Pretoria, which in May 2019 declared the act unconstitutional and invalid.
The union said it had, on Wednesday, filed an application in the Constitutional Court to confirm the unconstitutionality of the exclusion of domestic workers from the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act 130 of 1993 (Coida).
Mahlangu said she had been distraught when she learnt she would not be able to claim from the labour department after her mother’s death.
“I found this completely unfair because it put dependents of domestic workers in a very negative position.
“I was really distraught. My mother was a breadwinner.
“She was the one paying for my son’s school fees. I just saw my life crashing in front of me.”
She said she had to take her son out of creche because she could not afford the fees.
Her mother had been working for the same family for 22 years when she died.
When she took up the fight, she told herself it was a fight for all domestic workers and their dependents in SA.
The union’s Pinky Mashiyane said they had read about the drowning and traced Mahlangu.
“It was difficult to find her because she was in Mpumalanga, but with the help of other domestic workers in the area where her mother worked, we managed to find her.
“We approached the Wits law clinic and they did their research and consultations before the matter went to court.”
She said the union was now working with the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of SA to ensure the order would apply retrospectively and cover Mahlangu’s mother and other domestic workers.