Women and Work

Women from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Canada participated in this workshop. It is significant that the number of women participating here was much smaller than in other workshops. The themes which attracted the most women were the workshop on health, women and culture, and women and political struggle.

The workshop analysed the specific working conditions of women in Ecuador, Chile, Peru, Canada and Colombia. Some general problems were defined for all countries, but it was pointed out that in each country there may be specific differences. With this in mind the group elaborated on areas where we as women should concentrate our efforts for:

— better conditions for pregnancy, childbirth and maternity leave.
— an end to discrimination at work and in salary, and the protection of women workers from rural and urban areas.
— the acceptance of married or pregnant women and single mothers at the workplace.
— respect for time for breastfeeding.
— child-care and day care centres.
— the participation of women in unions and social organisations.
— training of both men and women within trade unions to include women's issues

We again reproduce some of the opinions expressed by women at this workshop, on the above problems:

"Women are doubly exploited in being women and working. We see that the great majority of women are not employed because of lack of education, or because it doesn't
please their husbands, or because they can't leave the house, or have no-one to leave the children with because the State and companies do not provide child-care facilities. The deterioration of living standards in the country and the loss of land are factors which cause peasants to migrate to the intermediate cities where they have little future, stable employment or participation in the urban economy. Those who find work are mostly labourers, artisans, street sellers and domestic workers."

"Women's situation is a problem because the treatment of women workers is contradictory: on the one hand women are sought after for certain kinds of work, and on the other they have tremendous difficulties finding work when they are pregnant or with nursing infants. In Ecuador, studies have shown that a mother of 3 - 5 children works 86-105 hours a week. This clearly has an effect on the amount she can participate in trade union activities."

During the discussion several denunciations were made:

— "We denounce the disregard of domestic work as work; the deplorable conditions in which wornen from the working class must carry out this work; the lack of proper equipment, bad conditions in public services, etc.; the double working-day for women; the lack of social security, health, and education for women domestic workers and their families.
— "The lack of free training centres for women from the working classes, and the lack of training in skills other than the traditional weaving and decorating etc."
— "The sexual violence against working women."

One woman wanted to emphasize the problem of domestic work and said:

"In what has been said so far, there really hasn't been any elaboration on domestic work. Many feminists point out that one of the fundamental contradictions which faces us is domestic work which contributes to the accumulation of capital and the maintenance of the system. We haven't gone into this. What is happening, and what do we think of domestic work? Since we're planning another meeting in two years' time, we must start answering some of the questions we have been raising here, or at least begin to tackle them.

"Last year we made a study of domestic work, and the situation is more or less the following: In Bogota, approximately 20 percent of the female work force is employed in
domestic work. These are mostly women who come from the villages and small towns. The institutions which offer employment to women in domestic service are basically the religious institutions, among which is the Opus Dei. Opus Dei controls 90 percent of the available domestic labour with an ideology of total submission and servility in order that the employees become 'worthy' of domestic service."

"I'd like to clarify something about domestic labour: we agreed with the women from Canada that domestic work is not a domestic economy but a collective one and that society gives this work social value which fulfils two functions: the reproduction of the work force and the reproduction of the relations of production. Women should be able to share with their partners the domestic tasks and those of raising and educating their children."

Concerning work in the free trade zones, one woman said:

"We would like this workshop to deal with something which is a concrete expression of imperialist domination of women: the exploitation to which women who work in the
free trade zones are submitted. These women are not allowed to get married and have no guarantee of even minimum wages."

Other themes which came up were:

a) Temporary work

"Temporary work is a relatively new phenomenon by which women are grossly exploited. In no other kind of work are women so exploited since the agencies which act as inter- mediaries take 60 percent of the workers' wages. Yet these temporary employment agencies make great play of the fact that they are helping women who cannot work a full day because of their duties in the home. While the agency  takes 64 pesos, the woman is left with only 36, which is clearly exploitation."

b) The problem of Peruvian women working in public service:

"We specifically want to speak of the public administration workers in Peru, the great majority of whom are women working as middle-level employees, and from the middle
classes — those who have completed only secondary education. The female population of Peru is about 8 1/2 million of which about 150,000 are employed. The most recent statistics (1973) from the National Institute of Public Administration, show that 46.5 percent of the administration workers were women and 56.6 percent were men. Several trade unions have been formed to fight together for specific demands. Women's participation in these unions is very low. The few women working in them ask for work stability, and maternity leave with full pay of 45 days before and 70 days after birth. In the specific case of the Peruvian Institute of Social Security, the paticipation of women in the union is extremely low: of 16,000 women workers in the metropolitan area, only 10 are in leadership positions such as secretary for training, culture etc. This leads me to the following conclusions: these women have no political consciousness and they are being used sexually. This is not due to them, but to the consequences of the capitalist patriarchal system which is sexist and consumer oriented, and which makes most women into objects."

The Peruvian women denounced the outrage which the women workers of the CONEL factory are still going through.

c) Concerning the situation of Chilean working women:

"We repudiate the new practice of the regime to reduce maternity leave to 28 days and to increase the grounds on which a woman can be fired. We demand that an end be put to the Programme of Minimum Employment which especially affects women, and that sources of employment be made available which are appropriate for the different sectors of Chilean workers. Official surveys give unemployment at 17 percent in Chile, but this could easily be higher since surveys consider that if you have worked continuously for a certain number of days, you are employed. In addition to the suspension of the law on maternity leave — 6 weeks before and 6 weeks after birth — pregnancy has now been included as a reason for firing, something which contradicts the regime's own politics of increasing population."

At the end of the session, one woman talked of the causes of exploitation in the work which all women do:

"I think we have advanced in putting forward demands for women, like having access to paid work and being less exploited in this sector. Nonetheless, I don't think we've really dealt with the work which is common to all women: the question of reproduction and the population politics which imperialist agencies impose on us in this regard. In this area of work which is common to all of us, we have made no demands at all. We have limited ourselves to demands which could be accomplished by any mixed political group. Our point of departure is sexuality and it is here that we are used according to the needs of the State or dominating powers. This is why we are relegated to the home, to reproduction and the tasks involved in that. It is economic exploitation since capital is accumulated from all the free labour assigned to women. We tend to think that sexuality and motherhood are not work, yet we all know very well that maternity and sexuality for reproduction are socially conditioned and determined."

The group was concerned that the participation was so small in this workshop, and attributed this in part to the existence of some feminist groups which are somewhat closed and not ready to deal with these kinds of problems:

"It seems this group is somewhat of an orphan. But we should put this to the whole meeting (plenary) saying that  there was so little interest in the workshop, and proposing that the next meeting assure the participation of peasants and working class women who would be interested in this workshop."