Jennifer Jihye Chun 0:04
Welcome, I, my name is Jennifer Chen, and I teach in the Asian American Studies Department and the International Institute. And I'm thrilled to be able to welcome today's events. We are not part of your family, domestic workers in the international struggle, labor rights and recognition with our very special guest, Adrianna pass Ramirez with the International domestic workers Federation. I couldn't be more thrilled to include this event as part of this class culture, power and development, but also to offer this lecture to the public. And we're, we're incredibly pleased that there are so many different units on campus who are interested in the kind of work that our guest speaker Adrianna pass, Ramirez has been doing, and continues to do in the global domestic workers rights movement. And that includes the Latin American institute, the Center for Mexican studies, the Center for the Study of Women, and of course, the Institute for Research on labor and employment. So welcome to all of you from all of our communities across UCLA who are joining us here today. So it is really my privilege to introduce our guest speaker and also to tell you a little bit about today's event. So this lecture will focus on how to Latin American domestic workers, through their membership and the International domestic workers Federation, have led the global movement to advance domestic workers rights. And in particular, it will share insights about how domestic workers have used grassroots organizing, strategic alliance building and transnational solidarity, to secure and enforce one of the most historic victories for domestic workers in really global history, the passage of convention 189, the domestic workers convention of the International Labor Organization, and we are here today with our guest speaker, as I mentioned, Adrianna pus Ramirez, who is the regional coordinator of the Americas of the ID WF. She is a labor rights organizer and popular educator based in Mexico and Canada. Originally from Bolivia, she she sort of Prior to working at the I did, DW F was the senior organizer for the workers Action Center in Toronto, and the gender equity and women's empowerment office at the solidarity center in Mexico. We actually first met years and years ago in British Columbia when I used to work at the University of British Columbia. And as did our guest speaker, Adrianna, she went at the time, she was working at UBC, and also was a co founder of who CSEA for migrant rights, which was organizing migrant farmworkers in British Columbia and also transnationally. And I had the and all of you actually are really privileged because Adrianna was actually a former ta of some earlier version of this course I don't know, if you remember, and also went on to write a really fantastic master's thesis on agricultural migrant workers employed under guest worker programs in British Columbia. Currently adrionna holds an open society fellowship in which she's really kind of spending this next year, really studying the on the ground grassroots organizing that she has been involved with at the IWF but informed of course, by her long experience, really promoting labor and women's rights and human rights globally. So before I ask you to join me in welcoming Adrianna, I also wanted to let people know that our discussion and question and answer period after the the presentation by Adrianna pass Ramirez will be given by our very own time check. How many of you guys have talionis TA? Okay, awesome. So it's about half which makes sense because we have two TAs, and I just wanted to share that tine is a PhD student in gender studies. And her own research has been working on
really a historic flow of young women from the urban from the rural areas, to the sort of burgeoning metropolis of Seoul at the time in the 1960s and 1970s, as domestic workers and really trying to understand how their experiences of domestic work. Were inextricably linked to conditions of service servitude, and the kind of anxieties around how to develop and modernize in light of what was considered the question unquote futile remnants of the past. So tie in will kick off our q&a After our lecture. So with that, I'd love to turn it over to Adrianna Paz Ramirez and ask you all since we can clap, to give her a warm welcome.
Unknown Speaker 5:19
Thank you so much, Jennifer. It is so amazing to be in your class. And I want to tell all the students how lucky you are to have Jennifer, as a professor, she really opened up my mind, my heart, she challenged me a lot to keep doing what I love. So it is great to after I think a decade that we keep collaborating with Jennifer. I also want to acknowledge that here online, I have some of my beer comm rates colleagues, Sofia Trevino joining from Ottawa, Alexis de Simoni from the solidarity center, joining from Washington and ruler, say Gaia joining from Tunisia. She's a colleague from IWF. So it's great to have you here and you will help me in my presentation. So it's great that you joined and some old friends from Vancouver as well. And and God it's so great to see you. Okay, um, so I'm going to start sharing my screen because I have so many things to share that I hope that the presentation time is going to give me time. Oh, sorry. Can you see my? No. Just one second. Okay. Are you seeing my screen now? Yes. It's on full
Jennifer Jihye Chun 6:57
screen, though. Adrianna?
Unknown Speaker 6:59
What about now? Perfect. Mm hmm. Okay, perfect. And so I'm going to start by sharing with you the outline of the presentation. So basically, I'm going to have like two big parts in the presentation, one is going to start with a global picture of today's domestic workers organizing in Latin America, I will give you a snapshot of domestic workers globally. Some characteristics of paid work and domestic care work, the current picture in Latin America, who domestic workers are the conditions of employment, some legal frameworks, and the main challenges meaning theory versus practice. And second, I'm going to go into how all these things happen, how it is said that now we have these picture of today. So I will go into the history of grassroots organizing of domestic workers in Latin America, I will going to try to do a genealogy of articulation of right discourse and demand in the region. Then I'm going to see how these demands have joined to the global demands in the makings of international legislation of convention 189, which is decent work for domestic workers as framed by the International Labor Organization, the impact of the adoption of convention 189 in the region. And coming back to the current present moment, which is, from legal victories to the challenges of implementation. So first, I'm going to start locating my institutional political house, which is the International domestic workers Federation. It's the first Federation founded and led by grassroots women in the global south changed from the status of international network to an international global Federation in 2013, as a consequence of the big victory of the adoption of cya nine, today represents a little bit more than half a million individual domestic workers, organized into 882 unions and organizations in 64 countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Europe, and the Middle East and North Africa. The main goals of the Federation, as envisioned by the day workers, is to build a strong democratic and united domestic workers global organization to protect and advance domestic workers rights everywhere. So here, I put some pictures. Were one of the few pictures that you're going to see me because that shows my role in the movement. And the first picture. Well, the two pictures are in the Congress at our sec. Congress in 2018 in Cape Town, South Africa, I help the domestic workers unions in Latin America to really advance their political vision to bring their from frustrations and visions into programmatic areas. Giving a technical support is support to them to make these visions a reality. The second picture is our president Michel with boy in the in the moment and a very important moment of elections and passing over solutions. So it is so exciting to be working alongside the domestic workers a little bit of their passion, their history. So now, domestic anchor work. I want to frame carry work and domestic work as a condition for life reproduction, life sustaining and life survival, and the dynamics in the Global South. Care work and domestic work as we know it today, thanks to the activism of the domestic workers. It's an essential for the sustainment of life reproduction and economic development. Care work can be unpaid, when you do it for your family and can be paid when you do it for another family implies tasks that involves close relationships with other persons, but also implies tasks that can be done without developing relationships with other persons, the dynamics in the Global South, whereas in the Global North, care, work, and domestic work are compartmentalized and separated. For example, you have cleaners, nannies, notaries, homecare providers, etc.
Unknown Speaker 11:50
But in the Global South, you have domestic workers that are the ones that provide and perform all types of direct and indirect care work, meaning they cook they clean, they take care of babies, kids, elderly and members of the family with visible and invisible disabilities they do all at once be a little bit different than in Europe or in North America where you know, you hire a nanny or hire a cleaner or you hire a homecare worker. In the Global South, they do everything because people just don't have the money to pay separately to a nurse or to a nanny. Often, domestic work is unrecognized and undervalued type of work. patriarchy and the rise of capitalism are responsible for the lack of recognition of domestic work. Historically, this work has been regarded as not proper work as a natural responsibility of women, and socially and economically it is undervalued and valued. And this gets manifested in the employment conditions in the Employment Relations and in the wages of domestic workers. It is inconspicuous, its importance and necessity. It's only perceived when it's not performed, or it's poorly performed. It's undervalued because it's considered easy by people who do not do this work is stigmatized. Their resulting products or services do not last as they are consumed by the household members. They have a lower social prestige. It's not recognized as a profession. The process of acquiring competencies and skills is not valued. The working conditions are inferior to other occupations, which translates into lower salaries and non existent or less social protections, cover and coverage than other sectors and it has less bargaining powers. So on a snapshot of domestic workers globally, from our friends from the ILO, so globally, there are 75 6 million domestic workers according to a report that was released just last year. In Latin America and the Caribbean, there are 14 point 8 million domestic workers almost 20% of the domestic workers globally, which means that is the second biggest population of domestic workers after Asia Pacific, the domestic workers in Latin America and in the Caribbean. There are almost 15 million domestic workers who are the main providers of care work in the region. As I mentioned before 91% of them are women. There is a high prevalence of Indigenous women workers in countries with a big indigenous population such as Bolivia, Guatemala, Peru, the majority of them are indigenous domestic workers and in Countries with a big population of Afro descendants like Brazil, Colombia and Dominican Republic, the majority of them are domestic workers. There are 70% of international migrants in the region. And they represent 14.3 of the economically active female population work in, in Latin America. This means that 14% of the women in Latin America work in the domestic work sector. So the economic importance and social importance of domestic workers, it's big wages are equal or less than 50% of the average income of other workers in other sectors. Despite the adoption of laws, laws that guarantee the national minimum wage in most of the countries in the region. 70 point 70 to 72.3 of them are informally employed, meaning not have access to labor rights or effective social protections. Here, there was a really nice campaign of domestic workers, we have the picture of
Unknown Speaker 16:11
our general secretaries in Mexico, she says, for the right to have adjusted salary, determined Secretary of Colombia is saying the right to have social security in Costa Rica for the right to have a written contract and in Chile, for the right to not be fire when we are pregnant. Those are some of the demands. So as you saw in the slide before, the biggest problem in the region really ate the conditions of informality. So now I want to see informality to take a closer look, there are three main sources of informality. According to the ILO one, it could be that the law completely excludes domestic workers into legal framers. The second type of informality is that the law does not provide an adequate level of protection or inclusion. And the third type of informality is that the laws can be included and provide an adequate level at the level of theory, but there are flaws and gaps in implementation, meaning there are no regulations, there are no policies that ensure effective compliance with laws and regulations. So in Latin America, in theory, all domestic workers are covered by national labor legislation. So this means that 4.4 of domestic workers are covered by General labor laws. 83.4% of domestic workers are covered by General labor laws. And subordinated regulations are a specific labor laws. 12% of them are covered by subordinated regulations. This means that domestic workers are not explicitly excluded from labor laws. However, this doesn't mean that domestic workers enjoy equal treatment with workers generally. And it also doesn't mean that the level of coverage is adequate. And I also want to say that the fact that almost all domestic workers in theory are included. It's not because our countries were or governments were so amazing, but this is the result of decades of grassroots organizing, as we will see later. So in practice, despite that they are included in labor legislation and protections. 72.3 of them are informally employed, and they lack of effective coverage. This is the cause 67. It's due to implementation gaps, and 5% are due legal gaps, meaning that they are not properly or adequately included. Why, why this happens? Well, this is how patriarchy racism, colonial practices and capitalism get manifested in practice for domestic workers. Despite that they are included, this is not an effective inclusion. There is a strong resistance due to those colonial practices and systems of oppression that are very much alive in everyday basis. So you saw in this slide before the domestic workers, most of them are covered by legal protections, but this didn't happen overnight. So now we're going to see the history of grassroots organizing. Here I want to read a quote by our current vice president of IWF. We will board because despite of many noes, we are used to hear no all the time, from our employers from our government from our husbands from male trade unionist from everyone. No, you can't organize. No, you don't qualify. No, you don't know about politics. No, you don't have time. But we prove them wrong. So I historically struggle. Domestic works organizing is a historical struggle that Prelude the forms of organizing that we see today. The first experiences to organize the unorganized historically, it's considered by society, and even by other sectors as known workers whose work is not a proper type of work. And historically, they have been deprived of the traditional fighting weapons of the labor, such as the right to strike and collective bargaining used by other sectors and their industrial relations. So here is a very short timeline that shows how domestic workers union we can see some of the domestic workers organizing started in the 1930s
Unknown Speaker 21:14
in South America and in the Andean region, and then how in the 80s, they have created the first regional confederation of domestic workers. And in 2013, they are joined to the call of a global international federation. So now let's take a closer look. history matters and empowers the first six articulations of rights and demands in the 1930s. So I chose two countries that I'm more familiar with one in front, the Andean region, Bolivia, my own country and Brazil. So the history of Bolivia we can see the 1935 the first domestic workers union that it was called culinary women's union, headed by an indigenous women that was an arco anarcho syndicalist indigenous woman. And she was one of the pioneers of feminism in Bolivia. At that time, their demands were no so much different than today. They wanted free expression of ideas and free of the press, that the culinary art be recognized as a profession in our working day and Sunday stressed and the replacement of the word domestic with the word domestic worker in a Spanish domestic makes the reference to a domestic domesticated animal. So how that how they were called last domestic US, so they wanted to domestic worker. And they found the women's workers Federation, who later was the cornerstone for the Bolivian workers, three Central Union that exists today. So they played a crucial role in the labor history that is often unrecognized. Let's go to Brazil in 1936, we can see the first domestic workers union in Sao Paulo. Founded by a black activist louder Lena, the campus mellow a domestic worker that was militant of the clan, this time black Communist Party of Brazil. The fight in Brazil, it's very much the fight against racial oppression, to end a slave like conditions and recognitions of workers rights. In the 60s, they demanded inclusion into the labor laws in the 70s. They demanded minimum wage and hours of work with breaks and compensation for night shifts and full inclusion into the labor code. In the 80s. They fought for democracy and joined to the foundation of the Workers Party in Brazil. They are really the cornerstones of democracy in their societies. So how are domestic workers unions today, they are not a typical trade union and their industrial relations. And here I try to make a chart comparing domestic workers unions that are more like a social movement type of unions with regular trade unions even look at human resources. Usually, the domestic workers unions are run by domestic workers volunteers in many cases they are retired domestic workers, whereas other unions are run by permanent paid representatives and support staff. The funding they have no union tax, free from contract termination procedures, usually not support fine from the National Trade Union confederations sometimes occasionally for concrete actions and have some support of international cooperation. Trade Unions, regular trade unions have union tax from workers to unions union attacks from unions to national federation and regular contribution to and from the Confederation the union density in domestic workers sector is very low from 1.5 to two, and in regular trade unions the average ranges from 17 to 40. The candidate of course, in the countries and in the region's the capacity for action, it's they don't have as I said the right to strike and the collective bargaining except in very, in only in three countries Argentina why and city of Sao Paulo, they like employers representation and representation of workers in labor disputes and legal advice to workers. Whereas regular trade unions they do have the right to strike they do have the right of collective bargaining, they have branch wide the legality of agreements and presentation of workers This is the same in labor disputes
Unknown Speaker 25:59
and inclusion within industrial relations. Sorry type of membership is usually fragmented and informal. In typical trade unions, there are workplace based and formal industrial relations, you know, organizations that not that is not included in the labor court or ad hoc type of unions. Typical unions have union organization governed by the labor code and precise definition of rights and duties non existent or partial inclusion within the union structure whereas, trade unions typical trade unions have full inclusion within the union structure type of adversaries and opposition This is very important domestic workers does not have an organized and actively mobilized mobilization like other sectors, in other in other light workers in other sectors, for example, in makyla, workers or agricultural workers they will confront organized and mobilized opposition. So, our opposition is culturally ingrained and systemic, which made things more difficult. So, now that we have seen how are like a comparison of domestic workers unions and regular unions, I want to share with you genealogy of workers rights discourse, which have been very much the building blocks for the
Unknown Speaker 27:37
content of convention 79. These building blocks and and geneology of this course have been challenging and transforming human rights discourses into concrete local demands. So first, they started articulating like domestic workers in other regions, something that it sounds very simple but actually changes a lot. That how we see domestic work, domestic work is actual work, how this shifts power at the level of the discourse. Domestic Workers are started by recognizing that the labor is not help or just support that doesn't require a skills and knowledge. It rather brings disability recognition and dignity to the labor as the first condition for life prep Production Production, sustaining our survival. So it goes from inconspicuous to essential work, and shakes the main tenants of patriarchy and colonialism that justified oppression and dispossession, of rights to domestic workers. At the level of practice, this shift is because historically disenfranchised bodies and voices due to the intersection of oppressions of right race, gender class at a necessity now are seated at the table and change it changes the the usual actors, deepens democracy, through the creation of domestic workers, unions and associations, and helps to secure fundamental rights demands inclusion into the former labor movement, that historically it's been wild, white male dominated. So some concrete examples of how this translates into labor legislation. I'll give the example of the Bolivian domestic workers law in 2003. But actually, the first articulation of rights for the passing of the law in Bolivia is started in the early 19th. And these law, what it does is regulates domestic work, because it's considered now work and put them in almost whole legal equality than the rest of other sectors also allowed the unions to get ownership of the rights to represent their profession and mediate labor disputes with employers. One of the leader says domestic workers have to struggle to gain the right as women and as Indians because the majority of them and indigenous. The second tenet is we are not part of your family, we have our own. So at the level of the discourse, these challenges the legacy of slavery and colonizers mentality that is alive in employers mentality and mentality, in policymakers and in the society at large. This brings dignity to domestic workers, as autonomous human beings had to families, part an active members in their communities and as political actors, instead of the property of employers, masked by emotional ties to us to deny rights and recognitions. Usually, when domestic workers for example, ask their employers for an increase of salary or days off, they are encountered by these. But how come we give you everything we love you so much. We are like our family. So they say no, we have our own. At the level of practice, this shapes the practices of labor exploitation, by bringing Employment Relations and working conditions to the level of the household. An example of legal victories of these tenant will be Brazil in denialist. In regards to access to maternity leave the right to social housing, and limited hours of work for bracing and domestic workers leaders, the absence of limited work hours equals his slave like conditions and makes them totally disposable. So having gained these victories, it makes them it puts them in equality and dignity. Right. Another tenant eights, our more our work makes all other works possible. How this shifts at the level of the discourse. Throughout decades of mobilization, domestic workers have developed a powerful analysis of the value of their own labor, they categorically refuse the idea that domestic work is a non productive, and position it as fundamental to other forms of work. How this shapes at the level of practice, domestic workers reclaim care and domestic work as productive and valuable. They contest the coloniality of labor, their racial and gender hierarchies that produces they propose a counter hegemonic vision of society in which their labor is as valuable as everyone else. And when they are considered workers in their own full rights.
Unknown Speaker 32:57
How this translates in terms of labor legislation, we can see, for example, the legal victory of domestic workers in Ottawa, Argentina, and Sao Paulo, to have collective bargaining power in three partite structures of negotiation meaning employers, workers and Ministry of Labor, the right to collective negotiate salaries and conditions of employment with their employers brings equality and recognition of cell political representation to the sector. And finally, we want what you have the ship's power at the level of the discourse, because it closes the gap of social racial and economic inequality and the level of practice, they are no longer second class workers and citizens and a as an example of labor legislation, very concrete wins, we can see, for example, mandatory written contracts in Peru for domestic workers in 2021. Yes, in the midst of the pandemic, social protection coverage in Mexico, in 2019, and employment insurance coverage in Chile victory also in the midst of the pandemic. So, as you can see, the discourse shifts practice and materializes in concrete illegal wins for domestic workers. So this is more or less how they have been evolving. But how domestic workers made the unthinkable possible. Let's take a look from the inside out. So the power of self political representation and having their own narrative was and continues to be key for the sustainance and relevance and legitimacy and strength of domestic workers movement around the globe. We don't want professionals speaking for us, they avoided the risk of being constructed as victims or recipients of goodwill as consequence of Support received by organizations that are not composed of domestic workers, domestic workers, this is very strong, especially in Latin America, where they have a strong commitment that domestic workers must be led by domestic workers themselves. And they have a very clear understanding about the roles that different people brings into their movement. But it's very clear that their movement must be led by themselves. Organizing models. There are I think, basically three big organizing models. One is the union model that has a class identity, that it challenges class identity, but reconfigures and recognize the importance of gendered care work, that this is how they have been made their their inclusion into the trade union, trade central unions in the countries. The other is the association model that mobilizes around transnationalism of race and genders, and brings new politics of identity around migrant scene. You can see this a lot in the case of migrant workers that are not allowed to have formerly unions, but they have association so nothing stops, they're organizing the data's find at different models. And the community unionism type of type of more than that, I think it's a mix of the first two. And, and this is embedded in the social movements, struggles of their countries, and transnationally as well. The strategic alliances that they were able to create at local, national and international level are very much based in class. This is with the labor movement through trade unions committees, usually gender based alliances with feminist organizations that goes from lefty, feminist organizations to catabolic organizations, also alliances based on race and ethnicity. Like for example, with indigenous movements in some countries like Bolivia, or the black movement in Brazil, and also, of course, the alliances with academics and intellectuals. And occasionally left movements and workers parties. I can see this, especially in Brazil, where domestic workers were founding members of the Workers Party, and also in Bolivia, where domestic workers were also members of the broad left alliance that brought Evo Morales into power. And also another technique strategy. It's been the transnational movement building organizing
Unknown Speaker 37:47
the domestic workers in Latin America, when they first have these founding meeting to Confederate themselves into original Confederation, they already had the vision, the political vision in the future to be a global domestic workers organization. And this actually happened in 2013. Many of them stress their role of the canal proud that was crucial to sustained and being forced to their local demands and activism and campaigns, as well as the International domestic workers Federation. So they have these really powerful visionary movement building agenda since the 80s. Now, we arrived to the moment when the passing of of 79 A was become a key moment in the history of domestic workers globally. I want to stress that my take on how the cya nine came, it's an a bottom up process and not the other way around. What I call Transnet, trans internationalization from below. So from bottom up process, it's because the building blocks of the content of 79 can already be found in concrete local demands decades ago, in different regions, and different countries, way before their institutional recognition. You saw the case of Latin America, also the case of Africa, more complete, concretely South Africa that they also have a long history of organizing, organizing since the apartheid. The case of domestic workers in Latin America shows how the global sound must be seen as a place of rice productions. Instead of recipients of right it is not that suddenly see one day convention gave them rights to domestic workers in the Global South, but it's rather the other way around the organization came from the bottom up decades before. So, it must be traced how the C one a nine really came to be considered by the ILO. It is probably even before 2005 That the ILO I think it started to see the necessity of having a convention that addresses domestic workers. But the first attempts or conversations that we saw in Latin America was in 2005. With that the Latin American and Caribbean domestic workers Confederation pushing for an international legislation for domestic workers, through meetings with ILO officers from Latin America, however, I think there was not enough free friction in the other time, and it was not until 2006, when there was a very important meeting in. In Holland, I believe my friend Sophia Trevino can correct me here. With the support of different organizations that galvanized the domestic workers into a global movement. organization such as the global labor Institute, we will the ILO with the support of FnB, the Dutch international agency. That's how domestic workers from Latin America join it and met to domestic workers from all over the world, the African domestic workers, the Asian domestic workers, the European ones, and they found an strong commonality in their demands. And they for sure brought each region brought their own dynamics and their takes, and their visions of how a convention that addresses the protection of domestic workers should look like. So in 2010 2011, there were the negotiations of the ILO of the convention in the ILO. And as our president of the IWF, she said, We shake the foundations of the ILO by bringing ourselves by occupying ourselves into the buildings of the ILO. I think, this convention, it really sets a historical precedence for the ILO. And the President said, this is an a small step for the ILO, the passing of 79. But it's a huge step for humanity. It was actually the first time that the workers that perform the work, are sitting in the building of the ILO and are directly confronting employers and governments. So the moral power and the symbolic power that it this brings, it cannot resolve in an unchanged type of process, but it rather revolutionized the Big House of labor. The history of Suwannee nine is beautiful. And there are videos that we can share later, because we can be talking about for hours about the history of the passing of Suwannee nine. Now, with forward the impacts of the passing in the region of the ILO Convention. First, it helps to legitimize all unnamed revendication of domestic workers rights. He supported the creation and official recognition of 15 new domestic workers unions in the region. The ratification was sorry, the Convention was ratified in 18 countries in Latin America, which is the champion region for ratification of 79. And also, it's the convention the ILO convention that is most widely that has the major number of ratifications comparing with other conventions. So that tells about the activism and the power of mobilization of domestic workers. After she won a nine they were free labor for labor reforms, policy, innovation and new legislation. And as the Latin American ILO director said the other day, it made the ILO known in every home so I want to share now, our video that it's a short video of the domestic workers. Just one second If I can do this can you know oops Can you see the
Jennifer Jihye Chun 45:26
sorry um Are you seeing the video Jenny? Yes. We just saw it but now it's gone. Okay, just one sec
Unknown Speaker 45:43
there we go
Jennifer Jihye Chun 45:50
you can see it. Yes.
Unknown Speaker 45:53
Okay
Unknown Speaker 46:05
this video sorry this video was made for 10 years anniversary of domestic workers and it just shows the passion with which the domestic workers speak about 10 years of these big victory
Unknown Speaker 46:36
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Unknown Speaker 50:00
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many car crashes are made there Moodle last August only. Okay, so, um, I hope you have a little bit of taste of the domestic workers activism. And now I go back to my presentation. Can you see it? Yes. Okay. So I will run because I realized that there is, I took already a lot of time, and I want to have a discussion with you. But the struggle continues from now the challenges are from legal innovation to policy implementation, the domestic workers feel that after a decade of the passing of 79 Now, that agenda max that must be implemented at the level of their daily lives. And in Latin America, the main agenda for overcoming conditions of India of informality, our wages, employment conditions, mandatory written contracts, effective social protection, house inspections, skills, training, professionalization and sectoral tripartite negotiation, the pandemic has certainly put acet back into the organizing of domestic workers in terms of advocacy demands, but also it brought so much mobilization and also even an increase in membership, just because domestic workers have this incredible resilience, power and capacity of adaptation to new changes. And here, you can see how they were doing a lot of humanitarian support in the midst of the pandemic, by bringing food medicines and and relief to their members. And through doing that, they were able to increase their membership. So those are the challenges that the the region has now. And I think very much, or other regions and domestic workers globally around the world. Here are some pictures taken by our very Dear Alexis de Simona, who is here in the in the webinar, this beautiful pictures of our leadership, regional training school for domestic workers in Latin America. Thank you. And I'm sorry that I took a lot.
Jennifer Jihye Chun 53:01
Thank you so much, Adrianna, that was really wonderful. Thank you so much for your really comprehensive, also nuanced sort of insights into so many of the ins and outs of what is an incredibly complex process. But it's really incomplete without understanding the decades. And also the multi sided forms of organizing at the grassroots level for so many different domestic workers in so many different countries across Latin America, but what also but also globally, and helping us really contextualize what a historic kind of passing like C 189 is, but also how to meet the challenges of implementation. I want to turn it over to Ty in Chad right now to ask the first question, to kick off our discussion over the next 15 minutes, so time to you.
Unknown Speaker 53:55
Thank you, Jana, for a really comprehensive talk. So the students also had really amazing questions that they posted on Canvas after reading all the two articles that were assigned that about the passing of the convention 189 as well as on different case studies. But the first question that I wanted to ask from Your presentation was your life histories as as well as your discussion about transnational ideation from below, I'll really show the importance of building a powerful below, as well as decentering the belief that, you know, the global south is a recipient of a social model rather than a creator of their own, which I think would also really speak to the students in the classes. We were learning about that, you know, decolonial methodologies as well. So I wanted to ask, So what are some historical, social and political factors that actually allowed for you know, this type of building of across regional as well as transnational organized organizing that was built from the bottom. And so what you know, allows workers to build relationships that allow for them to connect from local to transnational.
Unknown Speaker 55:16
Sure, I think the power of alliances, it is crucial. But I also think that the vision of transnational organizing, it was crucial in bringing together let's take the example of the Conan trial, the Latin American Caribbean Confederation, they came together in the 80s, with no social media, and with no so much international development, funding support, but they had, I think, this idea of like, really knowing and learning from each other, how was the conditions of domestic workers, for example, from the black domestic workers in Brazil, to the indigenous domestic workers in Peru, in Bolivia, and they started to travel by bus, together with the support, at that time, have some liberation theology activist in the churches. And also, it's important to highlight the case, or the support of academics at a time, miracles meet many intellectuals that they supported before domestic workers organizing was not so known and was not so sexy like before. But I think is this like vision that we are not alone, and we must come together, it's facilitated by these external alliances, and that's how they go together. And once they were together in one room, the rest is history, they will no going back. This doesn't mean that it's history of I only, like beautiful history. There were tensions, of course, there were complications, but that's, that's the making building of a movement.
Unknown Speaker 57:11
Thank you. Yeah, that was really beautiful. And, um, you know, your discussion on, you know, the importance of external alliances also brings me back to, you know, your talk about the importance of discourse, as well as you know, the domestic workers, or, you know, assertion of their rights, because like their work is work on so this is also making me think about, you know, how there are other informal work sectors and how, you know, there are other labor that is also not recognized as work. And then, in the, in the beginning, you know, Professor Jennifer chan mentioned that, you know, you co founded the organization called justice here for migrant or workers rights, and BC, which advocates for labor and immigration rights for migrant farmworkers. So I wanted to ask whether you could maybe tell us more about on data, as well as how you see, you know, the connection between, you know, all the different types of coding, coding, you know, informal workers and the potential for our connection and collaboration you see there.
Unknown Speaker 58:19
Thank you for asking that question of the farmworkers movement. It is in my heart, I come from that movement and the connection organizing in Canada in the Global North. It is not casual that domestic workers or care workers and migrant farm workers do not have the right to unionize in some provinces in Canada, and I believe in the United States is the same with farm work. This is because these two occupations are really where we see closest the legacy of slavery isn't. And those were the two sectors were were not included in the former labor movement. So they were left out because they were either black nowadays, or migrant workers, farm workers or black women or indigenous women. So this connection actually is very natural to come when you are part of the excluded ones. That Are you find ways of organizing, I call these underground rivers that come together. My first encounters with migrant domestic workers were actually in Canada. Because of my organizing with migrant farmworkers. We saw as a natural alliances the domestic workers from the Philippines, the caregivers that were also excluded from unionization rights and also excluded from citizenship and legal rights like the migrant farmworkers from Central America and Mexico. I think the organizing the margins bring so many posts abilities and enriches the possibilities of building broad alliances, because you are not only fixing the employment relations that are only preoccupied with improving wages and working conditions, but rather addressing all the other types of your identity as a worker, is stripped down from your citizenship rights from your, your gender, your race, your class, etc. Thank you. And I yeah, I
Unknown Speaker 1:00:33
think the importance of connection and like understanding that, you know, improving working conditions, it's not just about that, but also acknowledging that all these intersections, as you're saying about that, you know, citizenship, as well, as you know, like ethnicity and gender, or I think, Oh, definitely, really, like speaks to all me. And as I'm sure like to the entire audience, as well. Yeah, I see in the q&a from one of the students from Ghana. So we talked a lot in class about the difference between, you know, like, a practice and theory, or which you also talked really eloquently about as well, when you talk about how, you know, there is a difference between, you know, theory and practice. And I think what really stood out to me was when you said that, um, there is, so 67% of the gap actually comes from, you know, the implementation of the policy. So, I think, drawing some of the questions that I'm getting from the students together, what are some of the strategies that, you know, domestic workers are using in order to, you know, implement a change at the level of implementation?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:50
Yeah, this is one of the hardest fights, I think, the implementation, because, as I said, Mr. workers do not face an organized mobilized opposition, but it is rather dismantling the legacy of Patrick young colonialism and the mentality of the society in general. So the fact that it's so difficult to have employers organizations to come together and to negotiate employment conditions and wages, it is one of the factors that makes the implementation difficult, not having another part, that recognize themselves as employers. But also, it is the the unwillingness the lack of political will to really adjust and catch up with real law from reality. For example, the social protection coverage of domestic workers in Mexico, it's a good example. They after 20 years of struggle, they were able to have a pilot program that includes domestic workers, but the regulation and the policy, it's so badly designed, because it is it does an adequate to the dynamics of this fragmented social fragmented sector. So it's like applying the same kind of categories or recipes to these workers is not going to work and the lack of meaningful social dialogue. Also, it's one of the things that makes it difficult to come up with a design that really speaks and is in line with the reality of fragmented fragmented labor force like domestic workers. Other things, other challenges of implementation is that the agenda of domestic workers is not in the public and in the public and political agenda of three central unions or politicians. So domestic workers really have to mobilize a great deal of strategic alliances and actions to really bring their agenda to the table. I think the pandemic has opened up a possibility for an renewed social dialogue because it was so clear in the pandemic that the conditions of protection of domestic worker can no longer go on for 10 decades, more. And so I think even with the backdrop of the pandemic, so difficult to organize, but it's putting on the agenda, the necessity of health, health coverage, it is almost 15% of the active women's working women's population that they cannot be ignored anymore. And with all the experiences of bringing new legislation, I think they are equipped with the with experiences but we need to continue probably by adding new contexts or new tools for domestic workers to make, what is more difficult to make, which is to implement the laws and not only for our sector and misspeaking for all other workers sectors?
Jennifer Jihye Chun 1:05:19
Time Can I jump in for a second? Okay, thank you. Adrianna, can you hear me? Okay, great. So I wanted to offer for any of the students who have a question. You're welcome to come up, I want to ask a question about how, at the ground, you see conflicts or internal divisions playing out and what as an organizer, and what sort of leaders, grassroots leaders try to do to address them. And here I'm talking about kind of this long history of divide and conquer strategies, both as part of sort of colonized societies, but also in sort of the the ways that domestic workers might feel manipulated or controlled because of, for example, inequalities around skin tone, or differences between indigenous workers, or kind of the devaluation of black workers. And, you know, we know in our everyday lives that these kinds of fraught conflicts and divisions and inequalities and injustices also play out in the organizing. So at ID WF, like how, like how have you tried to sort of tackle these how have grassroots leaders tried to create sort of common ground to think about the barriers to organizing and sort of pathways forward to think about kind of the dynamics of I think trade unions have not always been, you know, taking leadership on?
Unknown Speaker 1:06:51
Hmm. Yes, certainly, it is full of challenges and tensions that that just because that's the political arena of confronting different interests. I think some of the principles of the domestic workers are bad, the boys and division of domestic workers must be respected. I see that. These many times makes us uncomfortable to some of our natural and traditional allies. For example, the labor movement of the women's movement, because the intersections of class and race and gender are very obvious when you are for example, trying to make alliances with trade central unions. The data class divide, not all the workers are the same type of workers. So for example, the domestic workers notice very well, that many times the trade union leaders that are for example, leading the delegation of the of the workers into ILC negotiations every year or when we are having conversations with the larger labor movement, they can see and perceive some employers attitude, that sometimes these translate in a nod a concrete support from the trade Central Union to the demands, or mobilizations of domestic workers not been included in the agenda of the trade Central Union, or at the level of the Confederations or the international confederations. I think this is the ever the never ending intention with trade unions. And also with a women's movement with the women's movement. Many of the feminists are also employers of domestic workers. So the layers and dynamics of class and race come, I think, how they have been resolving this tension. Throughout time. It's been sometimes through very concrete a circumstantial alliances, but other times like challenging and sometimes separation. Every region has their own dynamics, and their own commitments. But I think in IWF, we have spent a lot of time in like really building a common ground that domestic workers leadership must be at the forefront and respecting these and communicating, for example, these visions with funders, with trade unions with international organizations with whom we form alliances, the commitment to have their voices there, it is always on in the agenda, but this doesn't mean that it's not Is that isn't isn't to navigate? Like, for example, I know my my colleague role is going to laugh. But when we have, for example, requests for joining global campaigns against gender based violence, how is the vision of feminist like white feminist labor organizations to put the main demands or to frame the issues? Maintenance is different to what and how domestic workers will frame that? But how do we join to these global campaigns? How do we assert the patient of the domestic workers like bringing all these lenses, it is a constant negotiation. And sometimes we ended up like breaking some alliances and and creating a new ones. It's never static, always dynamic. And it plays out very different according to the historical and local context where domestic workers are actually campaigning.
Jennifer Jihye Chun 1:11:02
Thank you so much. I feel like our time is so short. Did anyone I know we're out of time. Adrianna, I will send you questions. And I think there was another question down here. So I'll be sure to send them to you. Because I know that you are spending this year really thinking about reflecting, analyzing, documenting, synthesizing a lot of the victories and the gains of domestic worker organizing in Latin America. And so I will send you all of the student questions. So students here and also on Zoom, please. And also all of our attendees. Please join me in thanking Adrianna plus Ramirez for her wonderful lecture. And thank you also to timeshift or your wonderful moderated discussion. We will have a recording of this available and we will send it out to all of the folks who registered. Thank you very much. And see you soon hopefully, Adrianna. Bye bye.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:02
Thank you so much and you didn't die in any students. Thank you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai