#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #ARGENTINA #ANARCHISM #News #Journal #Update - (en) #Argentina, ICL-CIT, FORA: organizacion-obrera #93 - APRONS, UNIFORMS AND RUBBER GLOVES: REPRODUCTION FOR PRODUCTION (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 We are domestic workers, because we do a job that is very important. Because

without us, the women who are professionals could not work, because they would
have to attend to their homes. So we help a lot with production. It is to defend
that that we have our unions. (...) What we want is that the more participants
there are in the organization, the better, because that way they learn about
their rights and prepare themselves. ---- Basilia Catari Torres  [1]---- Telling
about care tasks/jobs/professions in the capitalist model means remembering life
stories like Basilia's. Undoubtedly, the debate about who (and under what
conditions) carry out work that assists in the continuity of the productive model
has gained a certain circulation during the pandemic. But that the debate exists
does not always mean that the decisions about its regulation come from the
organization of the workers. In general, they are in charge of some blessed who
wants to add political revenue or points against the bosses, perhaps and with
some help from his fairy godmother, a candidacy.

The International Labor Organization - ILO (2004) defines the term work as the
set of human activities, paid or not, that produce goods or services for an
economy, satisfy the needs of a community or provide the means of livelihood
necessary for individuals. . Employment, on the other hand, is understood as
"work performed in exchange for payment (salary, salary, commissions, tips,
piecework payments or payments in kind)" avoiding considering the dependency
relationship (ILO 2004). From the definitions presented, we can deduce that one
way of "measuring" those goods that we exchange in the market is by quantifying
the time it takes to produce them. The point is that there are jobs that do not
produce consumer goods, but rather care for those who produce or will produce in
the future.

In the definition of work proposed by the ILO, the Economic Commission for Latin
America and the Caribbean (CEPAL, 2007) makes a distinction between that which is
productive and that which serves for reproduction. For the organization,
productive work is that which produces goods or services, which has an exchange
value and generates income both in the form of wages and through commercial,
agricultural and commercial activities. The reproductive, on the other hand, is
understood as the set of tasks necessary to guarantee the care, well-being and
survival of the members of the household. It has two levels:

Biological reproduction: pregnancy, childbirth and lactation.
Social reproduction: maintenance of the home, upbringing, education, nutrition,
organization and care of the people who make up a social group (ECLAC, 2007)-
Historically, these reproductive care tasks were carried out by women. Fact that
strongly configured the salary scales, the entrance to the professional fields
[2], the possibility of promotion in the field of work, rest and access to
cultural goods in general.

Martelotte (2018) refers that care has three components:

Straight. Third party care. Example: childhoods, adults, people with chronic
pathologies.
Indirect. That required to take care of third parties. Example: transfers,
organization of the space where you live, etc.
Self care. Have your own time to take care of your own health, well-being and
free time.
The author suggests that care intervenes in a symbolic dimension (stimulation,
affection, self-esteem) and material (time, effort and competence), reaching the
conclusion that, given these characteristics of it, a job is constituted
(Martelotte, 2018). According to the National Institute of Statistics and
Censuses - INDEC (2021)  [3]in the City of Buenos Aires, the rate of
participation and use of time in unpaid domestic work activities (over 18 years
of age) is 74.2% (4.3 hours average), and if broken down by sex, it shows that
women have a participation of 88.9% (6.4 hours) versus men who have 57.9%
(equivalent to 3.04 hours). However, the conditions of permanence and hiring are
not the same  [4]. There is a pressure for the tasks related to care that is
added to the productive need of an alienating system.

"The reading is that the working day in that city is eternal. Households are
exchanging income poverty for time poverty" (Esquivel, 2015).

The current state of things and the possibility of having updated figures have
allowed the vernacular political power to see the demands as a window of
possibility. This is how the bill sent by the executive whose title is "Caring in
equality" (2022) arises. A clear maneuver of bureaucratization of the way in
which communities manage and recirculate care under the guise of attractive
merchandising and equity discourse .

Its slogan is "towards the recognition of care as a necessity, a job and a right
for development with equality for all, all and all". Basically, it promotes the
creation of SINCA (Integral System of Care Policies of Argentina), a rubber stamp
made up as a tool to show that "investing in care is an intelligent strategy for
development and has a multiplier effect on the economy" (Ministry of women,
gender and diversity/Ministry of Labor, 2022). It seems that after the pandemic
we are awakened to the fact that unpaid tasks weigh on the strata of workers who
see their life situations as more precarious. At this point, the construct
proposed by Segato of "minorization" (2016) or disciplining of the forces that
operate outside of politics resonates in our memory. Just as chemical cohesive
forces are incorporatedrights to be regulated by the state and funds, procedures,
offices and bureaucrats are allocated to contain the emerging social. Known
story: the benefits that arise from the dependence on that machinery that can do
anything, require a good master as a survival strategy. It would also mean a kind
of quantification (and subsequent remuneration) compared to what is done (unless
they consider the definition proposed by the ILO to the letter and it is cheap
makeup).

The project refers to a coverage of 8 million people (it is not necessary to take
out the calculator to see the link scope - investment, conversion that any
administrator of a home performs on a daily basis). Large Pandora's box that
ranges from licenses to the promotion of unpaid work, forcing the Executive to
compile statistics (national registry of paid care workers) in order to
"facilitate the implementation of the aforementioned policies" (Ministry of
Women, Gender and Diversity/Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security,
2022:9).

What would be the scope of a norm that seems to understand social reproduction as
a whole (Fraser, 2018)? Would care lose its burden as a social and collective
responsibility? Does this rule tend to break the existing networks of community
care for a proposal based on individualism and the particular situation of each
person (sectoral logic)? We lack the possibility of knowing for sure if it is
mere electoral voluntarism, cloying discourse or the will to increase social
control in practices that at times seem to unite us with the rest of the beings
that cohabit with us. Little or nothing is specifically linked to the
increasingly urgent needs of those who are dedicated to reproductive care on a
daily basis.

Basilia and her companions organized themselves. They denounced the situation in
which rural and urban women lived. They looked for alternatives from the base.
They were kicked out, criminalized, persecuted, minorityized, and took over the
union that they had worked so hard to achieve. No one is saying the fight is fair
or benefits the base.

But perhaps what is at risk and worth consolidating is the ability to do
"micropolitics" (Rivera Cusicanqui, 2018): a multiform, tentative practice with
ups and downs. That recreation and reinvention of the traces of the past that
allows us to glimpse future emancipation.

Organize ourselves so that they don't take that away from us: the possibility, in
our terms, of a future emancipation.

References

Catari Torres, B. (2022). I have come from Chualluma. Women Creating: La Paz,
Bolivia.

Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean - ECLAC (2007). Social
Panorama of Latin America, Santiago de Chile.

Esquivel, V. (2015). Time, the invisible dimension of poverty. Available at:
https://youtu.be/yqjw3k3gWqU

INDEC (2021). National Survey of Time Use (ENUT). Available at:
https://www.indec.gob.ar/indec/web/Nivel4-Tema-4-31-117

Levaggi, V. (2004). What is decent work? ILO press room. Available at:
https://www.ilo.org/americas/sala-de-prensa/WCMS_LIM_653_SP/lang-es/index.htm#:~:text=El%20Tesauro%20de%20la%20Organizaci%C3%B3n,
support%20necessary%20for%20the%20individuals .

Martelotte, L. (2018). The social reorganization of care tasks: the pending
revolution. In: Arduino, I. et.al. (2018). Contributions of the Feminist Economy
from Argentina. Analysis, 27. Pp. 12-16. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung: Buenos Aires,
Argentina.

Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity/Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social
Security (2022). Project of Law "Caring in Equality". Available at:
https://www.argentina.gob.ar/generos/proyecto-de-ley-cuidar-en-igualdad#:~:text=Hacia%20el%20reognition%20de%20los,Pol%C3%ADticas%
20of%20Care%20in%20Argentina .

Rivera Cusicanqui, S. (2018). A ch'ixi world is possible. Essays from a present
in crisis. Lemon Ink: Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Segato, R.L. (2016). The war against women. Dream Traffickers: Buenos Aires,
Argentina.

Wainerman, C. and Binstock, G. (1995) «2. The feminization of Argentine nursing.
In Words of Silence. Latin American women and their history (259-283), comp.
Martha Moscoso. Ecuador: UNICEF.

[1] Basilia Catari Torres (Chualluma - Bolivia) was co-founder of the National
Federation of Domestic Workers of Bolivia (FENATRAHOB). She dedicated her entire
life to trade unionism, drafting Law 2450 (Regulation of salaried work in the
Home). Basilia herself died submerged in poverty. Thanks to Mujeres Creando, her
words have not been forgotten, as well as her honest, grassroots, humble and
supportive struggle.  Basilia could not see the regulation of article 9 of the
law that she promoted (health insurance) which would have allowed her to
accompany her colleagues for a longer time, which was only regulated in 2021 by
the MAS after the union asked her to do so for 14 years to Evo Morales.
[2] An exceptional case to the affirmation is the Nursing Profession in the City
of Buenos Aires, a discipline that was not born feminine, but was constituted
(Wainerman and Binstock, 1995).
[3] National Survey on the use of time, 2021 data.
[4] See testimony of Valeria Edelsztein (minutes 21:20 to 21:44) in Pioneros:
Cecilia Grierson - Canal Encuentro (2018). Available at: https://youtu.be/0t6Fjonl0DM

https://organizacion-obrera.fora.com.ar/2022/09/05/delantales-uniformes-y-guantes-de-goma-reproduccion-para-la-produccion/
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