A specter haunts the festive shopping season

November 23, 2013 by Dan Moshenberg 13 Comments

Tomorrow, November 24, will mark seven months since the Rana Plaza collapsed, killing over a thousand garment workers, overwhelmingly women. Tomorrow, November 24, will also mark the one-year anniversary of the Tazreen Fashion factory fire in which over a hundred garment workers were killed. Almost all of those killed were women. These were not accidents but rather pieces of a plan in which the lives of women, of women workers, of Asian women workers count for less than nothing.

Today, a report notes that U.S. retailers have `declined’ to aid “factory victims in Bangladesh.” The phrase “factory victims” is both telling and apt. The women who died, often slowly and always terribly, were indeed victims of factory production. A year later, as inspectors and engineers begin for the first time ever to examine factory structures in Bangladesh, Wal-Mart, Sears, Children’s Place have “declined” to assist at all in any compensation or aid program for “factory victims”. In fact, as of yet, every U.S. retailer has “declined.” Corporations from elsewhere, such as the Anglo-Irish company Primark and the Dutch-German company C&A have been “deeply involved in getting long-term compensation funds off the ground.”

Across the globe, factory workers struggle with corporate exploitation. Factory workers in sectors, such as garment and textile, that are “reserved” for women workers struggle with super-exploitation. That is part of the tragic and the everyday of the garment industry. But this tale of “factory victims” is more particular. This is about U.S.-based corporate global development plans, in which women workers of color are not only worth less than the machines they work at. For Walmart, Sears, Children’s Place and their confreres, those women are worth less than the chairs on which they sit every day, producing goods and profits.

“80% of Rana Plaza survivors are women. Now they find themselves in a situation more desperate than ever.” That too is part of the plan. That were no accidents; there were massacres. Remember that on Monday, as we enter, again, the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence. Remember the specter of “factory victims’ that haunts the end-of-year shopping seasons.

(Photo Credit 1: IndustriALL) (Photo Credit 2: IndustriALL)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Bangladesh, Dan Moshenberg, Haunts, massacre, Rana Plaza, Tazreen Fashion, Wal-Mart, women workers

Lede: Two million women workers … ¡presenté!

September 18, 2013 by Dan Moshenberg 8 Comments

Alpha Manzueta

Good news: “The Obama administration announced yesterday it will extend labor benefits and overtime pay to health care workers providing home care. This ruling affects nearly 2 million health care workers, who daily manage the needs of elderly and chronically ill people, as well as people with disabilities. One of the fastest-growing professions in the U.S., these workers have been exempt from benefits provided by the Fair Labor Standards Act since 1974.”

Bad, and unsurprising, news: 41% of women in the United States are poor or verging on poverty. The poverty rate among women is at the highest it’s been in twenty years. For Black and Latina women, almost one in four is `living in poverty’. From non-profit to corporate America, from not-for-profit sea to shining corporate capital C, women are paid less for the same or equivalent work, are promoted less often and less rapidly, and generally are positioned for hard times and slow death. Women workers won’t come anywhere near pay equity until, say, 2058. In other words, most women workers will not see any kind of gender equity or equality in their working lives.

Two-thirds of caregivers are women. Across the land, daughters are the caregivers to family elders: “It’s almost like being back at the turn of the century.” There’s no almost about it, and there’s no `back at’, because there hasn’t been progress. When it comes to care work, we live at the turn of the twentieth century.

When it comes to the description of care work, as well, we live at the turn of the twentieth century. Consider these examples from the past day’s news.

Alpha Manzueta is a full-time worker and single mother who lives with her daughter in a homeless shelter in New York. You know who lives in homeless shelters in New York City? The working poor. And you know who the working poor are: “Mostly female, they are engaged in a variety of low-wage jobs as security guards, bank tellers, sales clerks, computer instructors, home health aides and office support staff members. At work they present an image of adult responsibility, while in the shelter they must obey curfews and show evidence that they are actively looking for housing and saving part of their paycheck.”

Mostly female. A sidebar more or less buried in the fourth paragraph.

And who are the home care workers who will benefit from yesterday’s important decision to extend workers’ hard earned rights? “Mostly female” and almost never in the opening paragraph.

“Home care workers, like domestic workers worldwide, are mostly female, and many of them are immigrants and women of color.” Fourth paragraph.

“More than 90 percent of home care aides are women. About 30 percent are black, and 12 percent are Hispanic.” Ninth paragraph.

“President Barack Obama first proposed the rules nearly two years ago as part of broader effort to boost the economy and help low-income workers struggling to make ends meet. More than 90 percent of home care aides are women. About 30 percent are black, and 12 percent are Hispanic.” Seventh paragraph.

“The federal government estimates that 90 percent of home health workers are female and that 50 percent are minorities. As the population ages, the home health industry is expected to grow rapidly, expanding by 69 percent between 2010 and 2020.” Sixth, and final, paragraph.

“According to the Obama administration, almost 40 percent of aides receive government benefits like food stamps and Medicaid. Ninety-two percent of these workers are female, almost 30 percent are black and 12 percent are Hispanic.” Seventh paragraph.

Bloomberg Business Week actually began their report with the women: “Overturning a decades-old exemption, the U.S. Department of Labor has extended minimum wage and overtime benefits to the mostly female and minority workforce of nearly 2 million home health-care workers.”

Meanwhile, The San Francisco Bay Guardian reported yesterday, “The California Legislature gave final approval to the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights on Sept. 12, legislation sponsored by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-SF) to finally extend some labor rights to this largely female and immigrant workforce. Advocates are hopeful that Gov. Jerry Brown will sign it this time.”

Women workers. Women of color workers. Immigrant women workers. That’s the news. Put it in the lede. Two million women workers … ¡presenté!

(Photo Credit: Michael Nagle for The New York Times)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Alpha Manzueta, Dan Moshenberg, domestic workers, Haunts, women workers

For women workers, it’s time to change the song

June 9, 2013 by Dan Moshenberg 19 Comments

Reading the names of missing women

Across Turkey, women are at the forefront of the demonstrations. And not only women. Feminists: “At first groups of students chanted: `We are the soldiers of Ataturk’; this died out after feminist protesters objected to its militaristic overtones.”

From the first eruption through today, the Turkish movement has been a giant popular feminist education site, and one that includes sex workers: “`We used to sing ‘Erdogan is the son of a whore’. But when the police teargassed us, one of the brothels on Taksim Square opened its doors, and the women gave us shelter and treated us with lemons. We don’t sing that any more.’”

The solidarity of sex workers taught demonstrators that sex workers are workers, sisters, and women. Sex workers are not epithets or metaphors, and they are not criminals. They are part of the working mass, and they can represent themselves.

In the past week, sex worker organizations have taught exactly the same lesson to workers, social movements, and the State, around the world.

Across Canada this weekend, sex workers and supporters demonstrated, under the Red Umbrella, for legalization of sex work and for sex workers’ rights as workers, women, and women workers. This week, Canada’s Supreme Court will finally hear a challenge by Terri-Jean Bedford, Valerie Scott and Amy Lebovitch to the constitutionality of the laws concerning sex work.

Former and current sex workers have argued that criminalization makes sex workers more vulnerable, forces them further underground, further isolates them, and impedes access to public and social services. It’s a hard life, and the laws only make it harder, sometimes fatally so: “When Kerry Porth remembers her life as a sex worker in Vancouver, she can’t help but wonder how she survived when so many other prostitutes died a gruesome death at the hands of notorious serial killer Robert Pickton. `They were women just like me. Looking back, realizing just how much risk I was at, it was a real eye-opener.’”

In Kenya, sex workers in Laikipia District have organized a group called the Laikipia Peer Educators. They want formal recognition. They want the protection that formal recognition might provide, and they want the citizenship, the opportunity to participate and contribute to the common good in the same manner as every other worker. They want to trade in stigma for taxes.

In Australia, the Scarlet Alliance, representing Australian sex workers, lobbied to have foreign sex workers included among the skilled work visas. Sex work is legal across Australia, to varying degrees, but it’s not considered “skilled labor” by the State, at least not yet. Massage therapists, gardeners, florists, cooks, dog handlers, fashion designers, bed and breakfast operators, entertainers, dancers, recreation officers, makeup artists, jockeys, gymnastic coaches and horse riding instructors are considered skilled labor, but not sex work.

This is about work that is not called work, workers who are not called workers, and women who are told they cannot represent themselves. This concerns sex workers, as it concerns domestic workers in the United States. Both Hawaii and California seem to be on the verge of implementing or of passing respective Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. All workers are workers. Period.

Feminist political economists have argued for decades that women’s work is work, whether it’s waged or not, whether it’s called work or not. Women workers have known this and have organized for centuries for recognition, dignity, autonomy, rights and power.

From the social movements in Turkey to the courthouse in Canada to the District government in Kenya to the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship to the state houses across the United States, it’s time. It’s time to recognize women’s work, all work, as work, and to recognize all workers as workers. It’s time to change the song.

(Photo Credit: Rabble.ca / Murray Bush / Flux)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Australia, Canada, Dan Moshenberg, domestic workers, Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, Haunts, Kenya, sex workers, Turkey, women workers

Cambodia is not Bangladesh, and Asia is not a country!

May 29, 2013 by Dan Moshenberg 6 Comments

A week ago, thousands of mostly women garment workers in Cambodia blocked a national highway for a half hour. This week, about 3000 mostly women garment workers at the same factory, a factory that produces clothes for Nike, again sat down in protest. This time they were met with stun batons. Over 20 women were hurt, and so the international press showed up.

To their credit, the international press did note that the workers were “mostly female”. But then, the articles would veer into a curious geography: “A series of deadly incidents at factories in Bangladesh, including the collapse of a building last month that killed more than 1,000 people, has focused global attention on safety in factories in Asia makes goods for Western companies.”

Cambodia is not Bangladesh, and Asia is not a country.

From 1974 to the end of 2004, the global garment industry was ruled by the Multi Fibre Arrangement, or MFA, which was designed “to protect” so-called developed countries from the over-productive barbarous hordes of the emerging so-called developing countries. The MFA was basically a global quota system. In January 2005, all that came to an end, and the global garment industry was relocated under the rules of the WTO and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT. What happened next? Just what you expected: “The result of the end of the Multi-fibre Arrangement was a dramatic redistribution of the allocation of global apparel production. For example, in 2000 China contributed to 24.8 percent of world apparel exports, Cambodia’s share was 0.6 percent, and Mexico’s was 4.6 percent. In 2008, the Chinese market share of world apparel exports increased by 50 percent, as compared to 2004, and it constituted 38.8 percent of the global apparel trade. The Cambodian market share doubled over the same time period and accounted for 1.2 percent of world apparel exports. However, the Mexican share declined threefold in that period, and in 2008 it constituted only 1.4 percent of world apparel exports.”

There were no real surprises in the new world order. Competition among exporting countries drove prices down. Those who were prepared for the change, such as China and Cambodia, saw their national fortunes improve. That doesn’t mean the lot or lives of workers improved, but the national economies grew.

Everyone involved knew that the super majority of garment workers are women. Every study and every theoretical model stated that both in the short term and in the long term putting garment production under the WTO and GATT would be bad for women workers. But the national economies, and the free market, had to grow. The women workers would just have to deal with the price they must pay for everyone else’s success and justice.

In Cambodia, apparel exports account for more than two-thirds of total manufacturing exports, and garment workers make up about a third of the industrial work force. More than 80% of garment workers in Cambodia are women. Post-MFA changes meant that women’s salaries, short term, would decline, and, long term, that the wage gap between women and men would increase. The growing wage gap is part of the program for the future, and part and parcel of `development.’

So, this sounds like Bangladesh, but it’s not.

Between 1999 and 2004, the United States and Cambodia had a deal. If Cambodia demonstrated improved factory working conditions, it could send more to the US markets. Cambodia sends almost all of its exports to the US and Europe, and so this was a big deal. The ILO monitored the conditions through something called Better Factories Cambodia, or BFC. BFC increased individual factories’ US export quotas. It also engaged in capacity building with State, labor and management stakeholders. Cambodia established an Arbitration Council to deal with labor disputes. Many workers’ health and safety conditions improved. Of course problems remained, such as involuntary overtime and lack of childcare facilities, but a growing labor movement addressed them. Along with two decades of industrial garment industry hyper-expansion, Cambodia witnessed the emergence of hundreds of unions, of thousands of organized and wildcat actions, of an increasingly entitled and powerful women workers’ movement.

Women garment workers in Cambodia and in Bangladesh pay a heavy price for the global garment industry. But then … women workers everywhere pay a heavy price for economic growth as for economic decline. For that reason, it’s important to locate the story of the Cambodian women workers more accurately. They are industrial women workers, and they are struggling for exactly the same things that industrial women workers in the Europe and in the United States are struggling for: better pay, better working conditions, dignity, respect, autonomy, power.

A month ago, Better Factories Cambodia released its annual report. The number one issue is fire safety. In the past year there has been “a large drop in compliance.” On the factory floor, the owners are cutting corners and endangering women workers’ health, well-being, and lives. In the national context, the owners are cutting women’s salaries, “because of the economic downturn”, and are widening the wage gap between women and men. Just like in the United States.

(Photo Credit: CNN)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Dan Moshenberg, Haunts, Sabrina, women workers

Real Food, Real Jobs, Real Women of Color, Real Workers, Real Hope

April 29, 2013 by Paul Seltzer 9 Comments

In mid-March of this year, a dining hall worker at The George Washington University in Washington, DC named Rochelle Kelly was fired. Rochelle has worked in the GW dining hall, J Street, for over twenty-seven years.

Why was Rochelle fired? She had to take time off to care for her husband, who had a stroke. Then, Rochelle had a heart attack, and took more time off. This time off is perfectly legal. The general manager at J Street fired Rochelle anyway, breaking both the law and any sense of common decency.

Rochelle is a recognizable face at J Street and in the university community at large. She is a leader in the dining worker union, and is friends with many people that frequent the dining hall. Students, faculty, and others at GW noticed her absence immediately.

GW contracts its dining services to a multinational corporation named Sodexo. While the workers at J Street face firings, decreasing wages, and disrespect from management, Sodexo makes millions off its contract with the university, and hundreds of millions more worldwide. Sodexo is a company known for workers’ rights abuses, especially against Black women. J Street employees are mostly people of color (Rochelle is Black) and Sodexo management is mostly white (like the general manager who fired Rochelle).

Because Rochelle does not currently work for Sodexo, she cannot claim any benefits provided by the company. She must now work to find ways to pay for health care, food, and other necessities. Sodexo and GW exploit Rochelle’s extra work—whether it’s care work for her husband or for herself—in order to increase corporate profits, like so many others in debt at the university. The complete devaluation of the time needed for Rochelle’s care work mirrors the historical devaluation of Black women’s care work in the United States.

But Rochelle’s situation is not only one of misery. It is also one of hope. Along with other workers, students, faculty, and community supporters, Rochelle is organizing to get her job back, and to increase the power of dining workers at GW and across Washington, DC. Over four hundred supporters signed letters to Sodexo, students and workers did a delegation to the general manager’s office, and dining workers at another one of GW’s campuses voted to unionize.

That’s just the beginning. Women are leading, organizing, teaching, and working to build a better world. They are doing that through local, national, and global struggles, like the Real Food, Real Jobs campaign. They are joined by students, workers, and all others who work for a just world.

If you would like to join in solidarity with Rochelle and other food workers, please visit UNITE HERE Local 23’s website and sign their Real Food, Real Jobs pledge here. If you would like to get involved in the campaign at GW, contact the GW Progressive Student Union at gwprogress@gmail.com. To leave a message to the Sodexo general manager at J Street, contact Bernadette Thomas at bernadette.thomas@sodexo.com

(Photo Credit: Real Food Real Jobs / Facebook)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Fierce, George Washington University, Paul Seltzer, Real Food Real Jobs, Rochelle Kelly, UNITE HERE, women workers

The Bangladesh factory fire was a massacre of women workers

December 7, 2012 by Dan Moshenberg 10 Comments

On Sunday, November 25, 2012, Bangladesh suffered its worst-ever factory fire, at the Tazreen Fashions factory. At last count, 123 workers died. By all accounts, the workers were all or almost all women. Nothing here was new. Bangladesh has 4500 garment factories. The garment industry in Bangladesh employs more than 3 million people. Most of them are women. Many of them have died in `industrial accidents’.

There was no accident.

And now, less than two weeks later, the `discoveries’ begin. Today’s breaking news is the factory had no safety certificate. No one thought it did. Exit doors were locked. We knew that. Managers wouldn’t let workers leave until the flames were obvious, until it was too late. We `learned’ this week that Wal Mart actively blocked, or nixed, safety moves in Bangladesh, including in Tazreen Fashions factory. Are you surprised? Neither am I. The news is not that Wal Mart stopped a move towards worker safety, but rather than now the documents proving it have been made public as have the Wal Mart receipts left on Tazreen’s burnt floors. All of this has undermined Wal Mart’s account and credibility. Who believed Wal Mart in the first place? Who believes Wal Mart now?

Who believes the fashion industry when it claims shock and dismay? Who believes The New York Times or any other news outlet when they only now `discover’ a “gap in safety for local brands”?

Investigative reporting is important, as is research. So is accountability, including accountability in tone and diction. There was no accident, there was no gap, there was no absence, and there is no surprise. Call the event by its proper name: massacre. “An indiscriminate and brutal slaughter of people”, specifically of women. And the factory was no factory. It was a slaughterhouse. It always was, and we cannot claim to be surprised when the flames burst and the women workers’ bodies explode … again.

(Photo Credit: TheDailyStar.net)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Bangladesh, Dan Moshenberg, Haunts, massacre, women workers

The tragic and the everyday of the garment industry

November 26, 2012 by Dan Moshenberg 6 Comments

On May 10, 1993, 188 workers died, or were killed, in a fire at the Kader Toy Factory, in Bangkok, Thailand. 177 of the killed workers were women. The factory had no fire alarms, no sprinklers, very few fire extinguishers, and practically no means of escape. Those not immediately burned to death jumped out of third and fourth story windows … and were killed or seriously injured.

On November 19, 1993, 87 workers, all women, died, or were killed, in a fire at the Zhili Handicraft Factory, in Shenzhen, China’s first Special Economic Zone. A month later, on December 13, 61 women workers died, or were killed, in a fire at the Gaofu Textile Factory, in Fuzhou.

On Sunday, November 25, 2012, Bangladesh suffered its worst-ever factory fire, at the Tazreen Fashions factory, one of 4500 garment factories in the country. At last count, 123 workers died. By all accounts, the workers were all or almost all women.

Nothing here is new. Industries rely on women’s `nimble fingers’ to produce goods. Factories filled with women are overcrowded, have no fire alarms or sprinklers, and have no means of escape. Many women are burned to death. In these more recent versions, as in the earlier Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the factories are the signature of the modern. They are proof positive of progress made, or so the public is told.

Until the fire next time.

And each time, the fire, the tragedy, `enlightens’ a public that was previously innocent of any knowledge of the circumstances of industrial women workers. Fortunately for the innocent public, the dead cannot speak, cannot contradict the protestations of surprise and the performances of dismay.

But the living can.

At almost the same time the Tazreen factory burst into flames, garment workers, women workers, gathered in Bengaluru, in India, to give testimony to their working lives and to make demands. Managers abuse the women verbally and physically. The production targets are impossible. The pay is bare. The list goes on. What do the women want? They want what every worker wants. They want dignity, they want a living wage, they want the right to organize. They want everything that constitutes dignity, they want everything that expands dignity.

The women know they are working in a factory that is all women workers because a factory full of women is a factory of low wages. They are told this is a sign of development, of modernity. The women know better.

As we enter into the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, mourn the women workers who have died in the fires and support the women workers who continue to organize and make demands, as they produce clothing, toys, microchips, textiles, and more. Don’t let the brilliance of the fire obscure the urgencies of women workers’ everyday struggles for dignity and a living wage.

(Photo Credit: The Guardian)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Bangladesh, China, Dan Moshenberg, garment workers, Haunts, India, industrial fire, Kader Toy Factory, Thailand, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, women workers

How the women of Burkina Faso turned lemon into shea butter

November 2, 2012 by Dan Moshenberg 1 Comment

The forests of the world are under attack, `thanks’ to consumer demand for food, fuel, and fiber. The people who live in, and depend on, forests are also under attack. In Burkina Faso, a group of over 4000 plus rural women forest dwellers have taken the lemon they were dealt and turned it into … shea butter. And by so doing, they are transforming the world.

That dealt lemon has many components. First, life for rural women is often one of severely limited education, income, and hope. Second, the labor market in rural Burkina Faso relegated women to collecting and processing shea kernels. Collecting is arduous work, and butter production is even worse. The profits were less than meager. Third, the sales of shea kernels and butter were controlled by more powerful multinational companies that would buy the vast majority of kernels and ship them to Europe or Japan, for processing there. 95% of shea butter went into chocolate, margarine, confections. The rest went into cosmetics.

That was before.

In the late 1990s, women in Burkina Faso and a French cosmetic firm, L’Occitane, teamed up. L’Occitane understood that the market for organic and sustainable and fair market cosmetics was growing. The women gatherers in Burkina Faso knew there had to be a better way to live, for themselves as women, for their households and for their communities.

So, with some assistance, in 2001, about 600 women got together and formed l’Union des Groupements de Productrices des Produits du Karité de la Sissili et du Ziro (UGPPK/S-Z), the Union of Women Producers of Shea Products of Sissili and Ziro. By 2009, they numbered almost 3000. Today, 4,6000 women are members of the cooperative, now called the Nununa Federation. And their ranks are growing.

The women set themselves to understanding the economies of scale, certification, market, and cooperative development. When they had to, they diversified. When the time seemed right, they moved into semi-industrial production. At each step, they have been a model of transparency and democratic and shared decision making. International bodies have certified their product as organic and their processes as Fair Market. They are committed to sustainable development, and they have largely succeeded. They are also committed to a better life. They redesigned the production processes so that no woman has to endure the kind of pain that went into `traditional’ gathering and butter-making processes. From the forests of Burkina Faso to the faces of Europe, the United States, Canada, Japan, the women of the Nununa Federation are leading the way to a better world.

The Nununa Federation is the first organization anywhere to invest successfully in the semi-industrialisation of shea-butter production based on churning. As such, these women are literally breaking new ground. This organization of women has successfully increased its members’ income, increased their autonomy, increased their spare time, improved their health and wellbeing, and increased their stature … at home, in the marketplace, and around the world. And it all begins with the political education of standing up at a meeting and asking hard questions and getting direct answers. The Nununa Federation is simply “the best example in terms of organization, high quality service and products, and ingenuity.” They are a model of democratic, transparent governance.

Today, they say they “are filled with hope to continue the struggle.” The struggle continues.

(Photo Credit: http://rsr.akvo.org)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Burkina Faso, Dan Moshenberg, Haunts, Nununa Federation, shea butter, women workers

Fierce: Una visión de voces diferentes

October 5, 2012 by Paul Seltzer Leave a Comment

Por casi dos semanas, un grupo de mujeres latinas de Arlandria, Virginia han estado organizando una organización nueva. Recientemente esas mujeres decidieron formar una cooperativa de limpieza. Sus antecedentes son diversos, de países diferentes de Latinoamérica.

¿Qué es una cooperativa, y porque esas mujeres quieren formarla? Una cooperativa es un negocio, pero no solo. Un negocio tradicional tiene una dueña con más poder de una trabajadora individua. La dueña recibe la mayoría de la ganancia y las trabajadoras reciben mucho menos.

Sin embargo, en una cooperativa la situación es completamente diferente. En una cooperativa, todas las trabajadoras son las dueñas del negocio. Cada persona individua tiene la misma poder y recibe la misma ganancia. Es un sistema democrático e igual.

Es importante que esas mujeres, esas trabajadoras, estén organizando una cooperativa de limpieza. El sector de limpieza, como todo el sector del trabajo doméstico y trabajo de cuidar (incluyendo limpiar, cocinar, y cuidar de niños y ancianos) es trabajo duro y difícil. El valor de este sector, en que la gran mayoría de la mano de obra son mujeres inmigrantes, es desvalorizado por varias razones—el patriarcalismo y el racismo son gran factores—y esta desvaluación es impuesto por el estado y su falta de leyes y regulaciones. Trabajadoras domesticas individuas usualmente no reciben salarios o tratos justos en esta situación. Estas normas son las normas globales en la época del neoliberalismo.

Las mujeres de Arlandria ya lo saben, y la cooperativa es una manera en que ellas pueden luchar esas injusticias. Se dan la cuenta que juntas, en una estructura en que todas son iguales, con una visión de cinco puntos:

La cooperativa pagará salarios decentes a las trabajadoras.
Las trabajadoras trabajarán en condiciones justas.
La cooperativa proveerá horas flexibles a las trabajadoras.
La cooperativa no servirá solo las casas, sino también los negocios pequeños del área.
Las trabajadoras se apoyarán la una a la otra con cuidar de niños, con compensación correcta.
La cooperativa edificará solidaridad entre las trabajadoras y en toda la comunidad.

Sus visiones son más de visiones. Son demandas, demandas por respeto, dignidad, y un modo de vida mejor, articulado por voces diferentes.

Porque una cooperativa no es solo un negocio; sino, es una comunidad, una comunidad diversa. Las mujeres de Arlandria edifican su comunidad y su poder en esta manera, como mujeres, trabajadoras, y participantes en una democracia auténtica.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Arlandria, cooperative, domestic workers, Inquilinos y Trabajadores Unidos, Paul Seltzer, Tenants and Workers United, women workers

Chilean resort worker Luz Herrera says `NO!’ to austerity

February 7, 2012 by Dan Moshenberg Leave a Comment

A funny thing happened on the way to austerity. Women workers said, `NO!” And won. This week, it happened in Chile.

Sebastián Piñera is the president of Chile. He is Chile’s first billionaire president. He is a family man. He says he is a “Christian humanist.”

In December of last year, Piñera was at a summit meeting in Mexico when, to `lighten’ the mood, he told a joke concerning the difference between a politician and a woman. The joke ends as follows: “When a lady says no, she means maybe; when she says maybe, she means yes; when she says yes, then she’s not a woman.” No one in the Chilean women’s movements or sectors laughed. Even Carolina Schmidt, Piñera’s Minister for Women’s Services, publically criticized the President.

Sexual violence is not funny. Neither is the exploitation of women workers.

This past Sunday, Piñera and his family were on their way to Mass, when three women workers from the Bahía Coique resort stopped him and started shouting. They explained that they had been working for years, were receiving criminally sub-standard and illegal wages, were forced to work too long hours with no time off. Piñera is part-owner of Bahía Coique, in the southern part of Chile.

The leader of the trio seems to have been Luz Herrera. She explained that she is a laundry worker who has worked at the resort for nine years. She hasn’t received a raise in three years. The salaries are below the minimum wage. She can’t take care of her family on the money she earns. There’s no contract, there’s no protections, there’s workers’ comp or health insurance. She’s forced to work without breaks and without days off, in the very place that the President goes `to relax’.

Piñera vacations, often, at Bahía Coique. That’s where he was when the women workers approached him. He was, no doubt, getting some down time after his grueling time making jokes on the summit.

The government response was textbook classic. First, they tried to ignore the women. Then they claimed that Piñera didn’t have any holdings in the resort. Then they argued that the President can’t be expected to pay attention to every detail of his vast holdings. It’s hard to see the workers from the commanding heights.

That was yesterday.

Today, Luz Herrera announced that she and her fellow workers had received a raise that would bring the company in compliance with the law. Herrera is neither impressed nor grateful: “For us, life is hard, but for him, as President, he always washes his hands of us. He’s rich, he has money, and so for him, it’s all fine and dandy. But for us, it’s not good. In fact, it’s very bad. I am not afraid of anyone. I began this, and I will see it to its conclusion, because it’s not just about me. It’s about all workers.”

The women students of Chile are indignant. The women workers of Chile are as well. And they are not afraid of anyone or anything. They have begun this, and they will see it to its conclusion. Ask Luz Herrera.

(Photo Credit: Radio Biobio)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: austerity, Chile, Dan Moshenberg, Haunts, Luz Herrera, women workers