I am sorry to say that categorizing rates according to neighborhoods might not be a good thing. My friend lives across the hospital Fernandez and pays 35 when I pay mine 45 plus transportation and I live in Caballito. It does not make a difference to house workers since they all need the same amount; things cost around the same where they live??
Forgive me for being totally blunt here -since I am known for being clownish on this site. However, most folks I know here have never ever had regular house help in their lives.....I do not want to go further on this...so they have no clue what they are talking about and some comments sound rather offensive for us folks who are all about equity.
I am all about helping and giving folks good opportunities. We all who lived in what they called "developed countries" know what language we use and when we are abusing foreigners.
I'm not 100% sure if you are saying that us foreigners who are paying household domestics are actually sounding like blue bloods discussing how to best take advantage of "the help", but it sure sounds like it.
At the end of the day, the domestic workers here are not slaves and they won't work for ridiculously low wages for the most part. They will work for lower wages, sometimes, for someone who won't pay them as much as someone else, to have better working conditions and such.
The reality here is that Argentinos can afford to pay different rates according to what neighborhood they live in - because usually what neighborhood they live in depends on how much money they have. And believe it or not, Argentinos who live outside the city pay a lot less than people who live inside the city. Also, I know Argentinos that live in my neighborhood that will do everything they can to pay as little as they can to people they employ to clean their house and most people I know here look at me as poor (I live in a very nice building, 170 sq mt apartment with three bedrooms, an office and a maid's quarters - but I don't dress the part.). But I can't see anything wrong with someone asking people around them what they pay their domestic help and trying to use that for a comparison.
I agree with you that it shouldn't necessarily matter where you live as to how much a domestic employee gets paid. But this doesn't seem to be all you are saying, and it's not even necessarily a realistic requirement for "fairness".
Of course, we could make a law and require that everyone pay a domestic servant the same everywhere. Then some of the people who work for poorer people (take care of their children, help with laundry, etc) won't have a job any more, but I guess that's OK - everyone who is actually working will be "equal" and so what if the others don't have a job. They're better off not being taken advantage of, right?
The prices being discussed are not low prices, and I can't believe that because some people have mentioned their neighborhood, as a price comparison, and the amount they are paying that it seems to come across as some kind of rich-foreigner-nose-in-the-air-taking advantage kind of thing? I mentioned my neighborhood because someone else had mentioned my neighborhood and how much people were paying there. Am I someone who is crushing the worker under my heel? You don't know me, but I guarantee to you that is the exact opposite of what I am doing.
I live in an apartment that has a "dependencia". Have you ever noticed how an apartment is laid out that has had their floor plan include "maid's/servant's quarters"? There is a front and a back door to the apartment, as well as hallways that lead to the kitchen directly from the backdoor and servants' quarters, the rest of the apartment can be closed off so the servant is restricted to the back door "service entrance", kitchen/laundry and servants quarters. My last building was built in the early 80s. The one I'm in now, in the late 70s.
One thing I can guarantee you is that 99% of the foreigners here treat their domestic help here far, far, far better than the locals who hire the same. I know both. I know we are much more generous and think much better of the welfare of the people who come to clean our houses, do our laundry and sometimes even cook our meals, than a good portion of the Argentinos who hire people to do the same work. And we pay them more and demand less, on average.
I know this for certain because a large majority of the sisters and cousins of my wife, the females, who live here are domestic employees. I know what they earn, I know how they are treated and I know every one of them wishes I could find them a nice foreigner to work for.
My oldest sister-in-law, who once worked as a chef but was fired for getting pregnant, now works for two different expats cleaning and ironing and cooking dinner (she prepares the meal by 6:00 pm and then leaves - she gets to the apartment at about 12:00, having shopped for the meal on the way).
A local, who is a real estate agent, and her husband, who is an accountant, recently tried to convince my sister-in-law to come work for them. They live in Belgrano, have a very nice apartment (3 bedroom, about 130 sq mt, very nicely appointed). This woman is a friend of one of the expats my sister-in-law currently works for. My sister-in-law makes $45 pesos an hour with the expats. The Argentine couple tried to hire her at $30 and begged and whined for two weeks saying how she couldn't afford to pay what those rich foreigners were paying, but she just had to have my sister-in-law's cooking and while she was at it, needed someone to clean the apartment and wash her clothes. Just one example of many. And my sister-in-law said "not until hell freezes over and probably not even then." "Dale, por favor."
I apologize if I came across a little strong, particularly if I misunderstood your meaning, but I know of not one single expat here who doesn't go out of their way, particularly compared to many, many Argentinos, to ensure they are being fair to domestic employees.
