The domestic workers' story is the saddest of all. le don't have set hours Weare not allowed to sleep. We are always at the disposal of the people 48580883 who shouldn't i get ill, who for the patronas - only they are allowed to rest.
Talking to Eduarda So:0 vi* president of the Houseworkers Inion of Santa Cruz, vou are immediately aware of her self-confidence and ability. Only to of one of the most important unions in Santa Cruz - the major city of Bolivia's tropical Persuasive, humorous and politically adept, she has the qualities one would look for in a union leader.
Only twenty six years old, she has been working as an empicadd to. over twenty years. She started her first job living in her employers' house, having to eat leftovers from the babies On arriving in Santa Cruz from the country, she couldn't read or write, but would never admit it, preferring to say she had problems with her eyes. In one job years without pay; in would never allow her the time to study.
Yet others dismissed her without evena day's notice -a common practice, but harsh considering that the majority of domestic workers live in their emplovers nouse. But her case is not the worst. The union has nepea women who nave outt locked in the house and deprived of food, or subjected to violence, including stat bings and rapings. Often the remedy is to help them to es cape. The legal position of from the classic conditions that unionisation difficult. their about force is prential but dispersed and isolated. Their estimated average pay is below even the disturbingly low average in the country as a whole.
vie to inca, recognition of theirstatus, and because they come from the countryside or from the highlands, they are often subjected to the racism. ine curtural and restorical post tion of the indigenous groups from whom the empleadas are taken is an important factor in their weakened status society Thẻ country as a whole is overwhelmingly indian or mixed race, but dominated ровн by a small, mainly white, middle class. Added to this, there has been a drift from migration from the drought afrected areas. • Conditions which Bolivian triends of mine described as a form of apartheid Santa Cruz continues to act like a magnet and there is a surplus of women looking for work in childcare, cooking or housework. Finding and a stre asichaus, arencies were women haveto line upand wait to be chosen 'like animals in a per marker -It's also a world of dashed qualified to enter university are forced through lack of other work and the reed for some where to live, to take jobs empleadas.
Given these conditions, it is exists largely ‹ programme run by the IRFA Catholic aid programme, and a community radio station -radio Santa Cruz.
Miriam Suarez, a presenter of a women's programme on the adio. has dedicated much o her spare time to the formation obstacles that they had to overcome in the first two years, especially trving to hold meet. ings when many of the workers were only allowed half a day off in a fortnight.
They have now managed to establish a base, organised their first congress last year.
Their demands hardly ap pear revolutionary. Bolivia's labour history started relatively recenty, our even ou years arter are have them reduced from a norm of sixteen hours.
They are demanding social security and health benefits, and in recognition of their special cultural position, Concom and their cultural the light of the hostility that they continually face. In pushing for these, they have recognised their weakness in he labour market, putting great emphasis on education campaigns, and trying to influence he government directly to in roduce regulating legislation They face an uphill battle Since 1985 governments have iberal monetary policy, and are little inclined to damentally, there is a general blindness to the empleadas themselves.
For many of them, they want the union to restore their dignity, and in a phrase repeated by nearly all the women, to help them be recognised as human beings'.
This blindness extends into the conventional labour market. The regional trade union organisation takes little interest, and although there has at last been a recognition of the Houseworkers' Union. this recognition is 'worth more on paper than in practice There is no mistaking the bitterness empleadas talk about the lack of support they receive from male colleagues • Alter attending the carly meetings of the union, the local abour represertanve lose interest.
They are always talking in No. 11 the name of the workers. but never mention us women. They haven't got the right to talk in the name of the workers. What are we then? And we are the great majority of the labour sec tor in Santa Cruz.'said Miriam These are sentiments that recognise, but in Bolivia women workers face not only a traditional hostility to their organisations, but an economic climate That has devastated the labour market and weakened even the STONCUTOT Add to this strong regionalism which is hampering cooperation with similar regional organisations and would be easy to be pessimistic about the future of such a union.
La great allference in the nature and styleof this type of trade unionism It is giving the empleadas a respect and authority which society has denied them. Even without economic concessions, these are substantal samns, that will sustain them until they gain some regal recogniaon A change in social attitudes is one of the preconditions for future advances. Due to the work of the union and the example of women like Eduarda Soto. thic has already started to happen.
Nov. 9, 1991