Friend or Flunkey? Paid Domestic Workers in the New Economy

Gabrielle Meagher ,
0868407488, UNSW Press, March 2003, 224pp, PB , 235x155mm
Price: $47.95

Friend or Flunkey? Takes a close look at the working lives and attitudes of domestic workers in modern Australia. The book examines a great diversity of experiences in the domestic services industry, mainly through interviews with many participants, both employers and employed. In doing so it:

• Exposes the alleged exponential growth of paid domestic work in modern Australia as something of an urban myth
• Considers the classic contemporary middle-class ethical dilemmas on whether it is ‘wrong’ to pay for domestic help
• Considers the many reasons why women (and it remains mainly women) undertake paid domestic work
• Asks if Australia has a growing ‘servant’ class
• Looks at the development of specialist domestic cleaning companies

Friend of Flunkey will be of keen interest to anyone interested in the future of work, seeing the domestic services industry from the workers point of view, the ethics of the market, and economic sociology in action.