“I would go there on Sunday morning and come back on Saturday morning — 24-hour work all week. Imagine how much emotional and psychological work such a schedule brings. In fact, I had no sleep, no rest, and no personal life,” says Jilda Gergedava, who has been working as a nanny since 2016.
Jilda is a musician by profession. She taught at school for 16 years. She says that she decided to become a nanny because of her love for children and her experience working with them. Although the specifics of both school and family work is working with children, in her opinion, these are two radically different fields.
“I’ll say the good side, which is — the relationship with the children. We grow with them, we develop together… However, you have to work not only with the child, but with many people, and one of the difficulties is this…”
Since she also has experience working abroad, she compares the reality with Georgia and tells us that the only difficulty of working abroad is being away from her family, although the working conditions there were more protected.
“I was alone for three years, without my family or children. Aside from that difficulty, I felt more protected there than here. For example, it was a rule there that people should rest on weekends.”
In Georgia, there are cases when nannies only have one day off during the week. Sometimes, the family decides on this particular day.
“Also, families often say: so what if a nanny has to wait an hour for me?!’ No, an hour is a very long time in this work and it should not be neglected like that.”
She recalls a case when she verbally agreed to raise a 5-year-old girl with her parents, but when she arrived at the family home, she found there were three children.
Overtime work, vacation rights, compensation, occupational diseases, probationary periods, food issues, health insurance – this is an incomplete list of challenges that, according to Jilda, unite nannies and, in general, women involved in domestic work.
According to 2023 data, 17 thousand people were involved in family labor in Georgia that year. This labor implies paid employment in families. According to the National Statistics Service of Georgia, this can be a gardener, driver, watchman, home teacher, cook, caregiver or other employee. According to thematic reports, the majority of those employed in families — 99% — are women.
“Employment at families is a women’s rights issue — not only because the vast majority of those employed at families are women, but also because those employed in a family, in return for payment, perform the same family care work that women typically perform without payment,” reads the study “Invisible Hands: Formalizing Employment in the Home in Georgia.” The same study summarizes the following experiences of nannies:
“March 3 was approaching and I told [the child’s mother], ‘That’s nice, I’ll take a break.’ No, I can’t give you a break, she said, I don’t have enough time, and I can only do something on holidays. I told her, ‘Do you know what my days off give me enough time for?'” — A nanny, 54 years old, Tbilisi.
“Sometimes they pick up the child after six, sometimes later. This does not affect the salary, of course. We have a different relationship, they are very close, we respect each other” — A nanny, 51 years old, Sighnaghi.
“When they go on vacation, I try to find another job. Sometimes I follow them to the village, but if I can’t go, they don’t pay me and I look for a temporary job. When they go for 2 months [in the summer], I need an income,” — A nanny, 62 years old, Tbilisi.
The International Labor Organization describes family work as an informal and invisible form of employment that places the worker in a vulnerable position. The work of an informal worker is not visible and is not protected by labor and social security laws. In 2011, the International Labor Organization adopted the Convention on Family Work (C189), which aims to ensure decent work for all and protect the fundamental rights of family workers. However, Georgia has not ratified this convention. The Labor Code of Georgia does not define family work either.
Because the rights of domestic workers are unprotected at the legislative level, nannies themselves have united to improve working conditions.
Mariam Takidze / Aprili Media
Jilda tells us that the researcher, Ina Charkviani, brought together domestic workers and nannies. Five years ago, together with Ina, they founded an organization called the Association of Nannies and Domestic Workers. The women gathered here had three things in common: knowledge and experience of domestic work, a desire to make this work better, and a belief that this was possible by uniting and supporting each other. To this day, they are actively working to raise public awareness about the importance of domestic work.
“Our organization has existed for five years. Domestic workers should know this, because we are a great support and wall for them. We have done a lot. The first thing that is important is the labor contract. It is necessary to use the labor contract. The society, the employer, and the nanny are learning about it. Many have used it.”
At this stage, the organization has 300 official members. They hold a legal consultation meeting once a month, have an employment service and a hotline. However, in addition to common activities, this unity has become a space for them to share cooperation, solidarity, worries and joys.
“We even manage to go to the theater together. When we meet for a consultation meeting once a month, of course, we don’t just talk about work there — we’ve become so friendly, the environment is so free. For example, when immigrant domestic workers come, they share their worries and experiences with us, and we leave emotionally charged. In fact, our meeting, which is supposed to last two hours, sometimes lasts four hours, we feel so good together,” Jilda tells us.
Ina Charkviani has been researching issues of family care and labor for four years. She tells us that her mother worked as a nanny, when it became clear to her that this work did not resemble formal labor: “For her, there were two shifts in family labor — the paid work of a nanny and the unpaid work of a housekeeper.”
Ina initially met with nannies as part of her research: “In the context of these conversations and meetings, it became very clear that many fundamental labor rights of people working in families were being violated for the simple reason that the work was informal, the agreement was always oral, because there was no contract between the employer and the employee. Nannies did not enjoy days off, or it was a matter of the good will of the families.”
They started working on the contracts together. They included the Labor Code, 24-day vacation, all public holidays, specified the date of salary receipt, and specified specific responsibilities. In addition to meetings and joint activities, their goal is to formalize family work. Ina tells us that this way, nannies and domestic workers will have access to many more social benefits.
“We are talking about 24 days of paid leave, access to maternity leave, retirement savings, sick leave, which is usually unavailable to these people and they are not even entitled to sick leave, let alone request leave, and many more such lists. In conditions of formalization of labor, we have even more leverage to demand that the employer fulfill all these conditions than in conditions of informality.”
“Three months ago, I started having pain. At first, as usual, I didn’t pay attention and bought some medicine at the pharmacy. When the pain didn’t go away, I went to a neurologist. The X-ray didn’t show any pathologies, so I was sent to the Evex clinic for an ultrasound. The ultrasound showed that I have an inflammatory process in my left shoulder joint, and fluid could be seen leaking from the joint.
The traumatologist didn’t really examine me carefully, listened to me superficially and prescribed a needle. He told me that I was strictly forbidden to put weight on my left arm or lift weights. Finally, he looked at me in surprise and asked, “So, where did all this come from?”
I told him that I work as a nanny, I take care of a 2-year-old girl, whom I often have to carry by hand, while walking, I also feed her in a baby chair and need to pick her up every time to put her in, and I always hold her in the sink with my left hand and wash her with my right. I explained that I could not stop doing any of these things. I could not ask for a vacation, because of the busy schedule of the child’s mother.
The doctor told me that if I was working formally, I would definitely be given a medical leave, but that’s impossible to do when you’re employed in a family.
“I underwent a two-week course of injection treatment, but there is no result. I have been given another week of medication, and if that doesn’t help, I will have to undergo a more difficult course. I have spent more than 200 GEL so far, and I don’t know how the treatment will continue.”
A domestic worker shares her experiences in “The Nanny’s Diary.” This is a collection of anonymous posts. The stories are shared on the platform by nannies who are members of the association. The experiences told in these posts shed more light on what it’s like for nannies to be in informal work. Ina tells us that in these types of relationships, employees are often protected by emotional labor.
“These people really enter into friendly relationships and really fall in love with children, they don’t just do the work of love, they are really in love with their children. In addition, there is another perspective on the issue of emotional labor — that is, if nothing protects us in the family, personal relationships protect us. If we have a good relationship with the employer and the employer’s family members, there is less chance of losing our job. This is a condition that particularly increases the role, the necessity of emotional labor and introduces it into this agenda as part of work.”
In August 2024, the Association of Nannies and Domestic Workers conducted a salary survey of its members. The study found that the average hourly rate for a nanny in Tbilisi was 7 GEL. The association’s report states:
“According to the Labor Code, the standard number of working hours is 40 hours per week, but in our case the nanny works 50 hours per week. That is, she works 160 hours per month in standard time and 40 hours in overtime. To calculate her monthly rate, we must calculate the overtime pay separately. We will multiply the number of standard working hours (160) by 7 GEL, and the overtime hours (40) by 8.75 and add them together: 160 (monthly standard working hours) x 7 (minimum hourly rate) + 40 (monthly overtime hours) x 8.75 (overtime rate) = 1120 + 350 = 1470. It turns out that in the case of a 10-hour working day, the average pay of a nanny is 1470 GEL. Here It is necessary to say that when agreeing on a salary rate, working conditions, responsibilities, the nanny’s competence, etc. are important, and the salary is always a matter of agreement between the parties.”
Jilda tells us that in Tbilisi, nannies often get paid differently depending on their neighborhood. They even conducted a survey in the association’s Facebook group about this. It turned out that salaries are higher in Vake-Saburtalo, while salaries are lower in the periphery, such as Gldani, Varketili, and Vazisubani.
It is also clear from publicly available vacancies that the salary is not standardized.
It is also important to note that for some nannies, their work does not end when they leave their employer’s family – their work continues as a second shift at home. The life of any family or society is unthinkable without care work, although it is rarely called work.
In Georgia, women spend 5 times more time than men on unpaid care work, such as cleaning the house, preparing meals, and caring for children and the elderly .
Read more about working from home in our article:
The Association of Nannies and Domestic Workers has a hotline for women working in the home. If you have any questions, you can contact: 551 811 911.