Dr Natalie Sedacca has recently published a sole-authored article on domestic workers and the ‘family worker’ exemption from minimum wage in the Industrial Law journal. The article explores a legislative provision that has allowed some live-in domestic workers to be paid below the minimum wage. It uses a feminist framework to criticise the exemption and its application to domestic workers, arguing that this exemplifies the devaluation of domestic labour. The article examines a 2020 Employment Tribunal case that held the exemption to be unlawful and indirectly discriminatory on the grounds of sex, and further exploresthe wider impacts of this decision. While the government has recently agreed to repeal the exemption, the article warns that many migrant domestic workers will continue to face difficulties in enforcing payment of the minimum wage because of the harshness of the UK’s immigration rules.  

The article is available open access here.  

An abridged version of the article is to be translated into Italian and published in an edited volume by ADAPT University Press.