This article explores tensions in the ways in which non-governmental activism, as represented by trade unions and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), frames the concerns of migrant domestic workers (MDWs) living in South Africa. It analyses how seemingly polarised trade unions and NGOs involved in struggles on behalf of MDWs adopt singular discourses about labour rights at varying political moments to achieve their own goals. These singular frames conflate the issues around MDWs and their rights, reducing them to rigid categories of either ‘international migrants’ or ‘domestic workers’. The framing of MDWs’ concerns as international migrants’ rights issues reflects a transnational political approach that migrant-aligned trade unions and NGOs use in order to connect with pre-existing labour movement narratives and debates. This framing must contend with locally aligned trade unions and NGOs who frame international MDWs’ concerns essentially as equal to those of internal MDWs through the mantra ‘a worker is a worker’. This homogenising framing of worker struggles generates deep-seated xenophobic discourses about migrants in South Africa’s labour market which are compatible with a citizenship-based workers’ rights movement and ‘national chauvinism’. Although the mantra ought to allow every worker to stand up for their rights without risking immigration detention or deportation, locally aligned trade unions and NGOs use it to de-exceptionalise international migrants in order to appeal to a local constituency concerned about the economy being ‘overrun’ by international migrants. The article concludes that there is need for internal and international MDWs to organise themselves in ways that recognise their similarities and accommodate their differences.

本文探讨了以工会和非政府组织 (NGO) 为代表的非政府激进主义对生活在南非的移民家政工人 (MDW) 的担忧的紧张局势。它分析了看似两极分化的工会和代表 MDW 参与斗争的非政府组织如何在不同的政治时刻采用关于劳工权利的单一话语来实现自己的目标。这些单一的框架将围绕 MDW 及其权利的问题混为一谈，将它们归结为“国际移民”或“家庭工人”的严格类别。将 MDW 的担忧视为国际移民权利问题，反映了与移民结盟的工会和非政府组织为了与先前存在的劳工运动叙述和辩论联系起来而使用的跨国政治方法。这种框架必须与当地工会和非政府组织抗衡，这些工会和非政府组织通过“工人就是工人”的口号将国际 MDW 的关注点与内部 MDW 的关注点基本相同。这种工人斗争的同质化框架在南非劳动力市场上产生了关于移民的根深蒂固的仇外言论，这与以公民为基础的工人权利运动和“民族沙文主义”是一致的。尽管该口头禅应该允许每个工人在不冒移民拘留或驱逐出境的风险的情况下捍卫自己的权利，但当地工会和非政府组织利用它来消除国际移民的例外情况，以吸引担心经济“超支”的当地选民'由国际移民。