Thread by @Obscureobjet

On the situation of migrant domestic workers in Cyprus:
Migrant domestic workers know that they will never receive citizenship or nationality. They receive "residence/work permits", i.e permission to stay in the Republic of Cyprus in strict conjunction to their labor.

Republic of Cyprus law states that: "The maximum period of stay for third country nationals who work as domestic workers is 6 years (the initial permit is for 4 years +2 years for the renewal). The permit can be renewed after the 6th year, provided that the domestic worker is

applying to work for the same employer." The law further states that: "No more than 2 changes of employer are allowed during the 6-year employment of domestic workers (except in case of death/depatriation/ transfer of the employer in a nursing home, criminal offense by the

employer against the third country citizen or after a decision of the Labour Disputes Committee in favor of the third country citizen)" and that: "Change of employer is not allowed after 6 years of employment".
moi.gov.cy/moi/crmd/crmd.…
What does this law of the land mean?

It means that Filipinas and other migrant domestic workers, from Sri Lanka, etc., ARE NOT "FREE LABOR." That is to say, their relationship to employers is NOT BASED ON FREEDOM OF CONTRACT. They cannot, to be even more specific be displeased by the wages they receive or the

treatment they get by their employers, ON PAIN OF DEPORTATION. This is the ROOT OF ALL EVIL IN CYPRUS. It guarantees ABSOLUTE POWER to employers, ABSOLUTE POWERLESSNESS TO WOMEN DOMESTIC WORKERS. It is THE LAW that they can be exploited, underpaid, overworked, harassed, raped

blackmailed, threatened, terrorized WITH IMPUNITY. That is the LAW.

The ONLY available means they have if anything whatsoever goes wrong with their employer (and how unlikely is that with employers who KNOW they can do anything they want?) is to willingly accept deportation. Usually, they have incurred debts in order to be able to get to the

Republic of Cyprus, however, and may even be threatened if they don't send money back to their home country. And of course, they would never have come to Cyprus in the first place if they and their families were not faced with dire poverty, which their measly, way below minimum

wage, is meant to alleviate.
Because they are NOT FREE LABOR, migrant domestic workers fail to meet the criteria for unionization. It is absurd for someone who lacks all rights deriving from free contractual relations to attempt to unionize, since they have absolutely no

bargaining leverage. They are essentially INDENTURED SERVANTS, not wage labor, for freedom to leave any employer--however miserable a privilege it appears to us, is a fundamental aspect of the legal construction of wage labor. The migrant domestic worker lives a life whose only

poles are THE EMPLOYER and STATE POWER, in the form of the POLICE, the IMMIGRATION SERVICE OFFICERS, and the COURTS. They are utterly excluded from civil society, for they bear the stamp of impermanency and precarity on their foreheads. Their only actual social being is the

company of each other on their "day off" (migrant worker Sunday), when they can speak to each other, exchange news from home, hold hands. And whatever communication they can maintain with their families back in their countries. This is the LEGAL FUNDAMENT where the last step

that of simply killing migrant workers as PURELY DISPENSABLE LIVES, LIVES THAT DO NOT MATTER, was made possible.

"after a decision of the Labour Disputes Committee in favor of the third country citizen"
Black humor, Republic of Cyprus style....

Finally: Is it racism that made the law, or law that secures the reproduction and intensification of racism in a country whose population is as "racially white" as Syrians or Lebanese?
It is both, of course. Racism made the law, and the law makes racism.
Racism made the law

because racism is PROFITABLE. The law makes racism because maintaining 3-4 cars and a villa while being "middle class" well, presupposes really brutal means of labor value extraction.

There was of course a time when slavery was the law. This is not the first time in history when the law is obscenity and when disobedience to the law is ethical duty.

So here's a radical, a revolutionary demand for 2019: FREEDOM OF FUCKING CONTRACT FOR EVERYONE.