Author: Bremda S Acosta

When I first arrived to Spain, I somewhat had an idea of what kind of relationship I wanted to have with my faculty mentor and Servicio Domestico Activo. I’m a fairly independent person so I thought I would communicate with them when I needed to. Meeting with Sedoac for the first time gave me the impression that this idea would work just fine since the members have jobs and families to take care of, not just the organization. However, this also meant that every time I had an idea for their YouTube channel or their blog, it would take a few weeks for me to be able to discuss those ideas. Also, because I had many suggestions and posted on their Facebook account, I was sometimes seen as an intern, not a fellow. It was also kind of a foreign idea to me to be in a new country for the sake of doing research and learning. One of the sources of anxiety I had to deal with was having to learn that doing research is not always about excessive productivity, that I can be a passive observer/learner. Being a passive learner allowed me to not have an agenda when I met new people from Sedoac and other domestic work organizations; instead, I would listen to conversations and ask questions when I didn’t understand something. I sometimes felt like the author of On the Run, Alice Goffman (without all the problematic observer-participation, of course).

I also now have a different idea of what it means to be a sociologist. As a sociology major, I spend a lot of time sitting in front of a computer, reading research papers, compiling information and figuring out how different social phenomena are interconnected as I write. This summer, however, I spent a lot more time actually talking to the people I do research about. I think it is important to meet people who are often the participants or subjects in social research because it reminds why your research matters. I feel that many researchers have this robotic way of doing research because it is easy to lose sight of why you are interested in a certain phenomenon when all you have in front of you is data that you need to put together to answer a question. There’s often a disconnect between the researcher and the research participants that I think can be bridged by directly interacting with the participants. I have worked with researchers who make sweeping statements about the populations they are researching because, I think, not interacting with these populations dehumanizes them in a way.

I also learned to be more open to new ways of viewing things in order to gain a better understanding of domestic work in Spain. Domestic workers who are involved in activism do not only think about themselves but also about the families they take care of and the government. It is not only about gaining equal labor rights but about a country whose economy and social security system are failing people who need care services. Moreover, many of the people in these families have also provided care services to families in other European countries, which, I think, makes migrant care workers view the lack of labor benefits as a social issue, not just an individual matter. I hope to be able to conduct research in the future about the dynamic between the different sides of domestic work (the migrant worker, the person/family being cared for, the laws that influence their relationship) and how economic changes have affected how each side views domestic work.

In order to get a broader view on what C189 is and which countries support the convention (through ratification), I made this story map. I included some facts on immigration about these countries that may be of interest to people who may want to do research on the relationship between domestic work, immigration and labor rights.

There are several bronze “urban statues” around Madrid, especially in the neighborhood of Malasaña, that depict ordinary people doing everyday things. There are many statues such as “the reader,” “the young woman walking” and “the student from Malasaña.” Some people have confessed to confusing these statues for people so I can see why it was ideal for El Grupo Turin, an organization Sedoac is part of, to make these statues come to life by dressing them like domestic workers. Yesterday, July 13th, at 8:30 am, five women from El Grupo Turin, including Sedoac’s president, decided to dress four of these statues with aprons, cleaning gloves and other cleaning supplies before going to the Ministry of Employment and Social Security. They were followed by several news chains such TeleMadrid and Televisión Española that asked them about their stories and also recorded the many songs they sang along the way. My favorite part of this event was when we took the metro on our way to the Ministry and Rafaela Pimentel started to sing about an undocumented woman named Adela who is suffering as a domestic worker because she does not have the same rights as other workers. The director of Change.org in Spain, Jose Antonio Ritoré, who I did not even know was part of Change.org, took the metro with us since he had to give us access to entering the Ministry and asked that I send him the video of the sing “Adela.”  I was also asked to scan my camera equipment along with those of the news chains before entering the Ministry and since I had been told about this event through a WhatsApp message in such an unofficial way, having to do this kind of legitimized the importance of the event. This also made me understand why Sedoac’s members get disappointed when news chains fail to show up to their events; in other words, having their interviews on television is an important way to visibilize their realities and what they are fighting for. Rafaela Pimentel is part of the organization “Territorio Domestico” and the person who started the petition on Change.org to ask the Spanish government to ratify El Convenio 189. This petition reached 100 thousands signatures so this event was a formal way to literally (we had 3 boxes filled with signatures) deliver these signatures to the Ministry of Employment and Social Security.

Even though Servicio Domestico Activo organizes its workshops, activities and meetings solely through the effort of its directive, there are certain events and goals that Sedoac has recognized can only be achieved through collective effort. For instance, the Festival Reivindicativo or “Protest Festival” that is held at La Puerta del Sol on June of every year is organized by many other organizations such as El Grupo Turín, Mujeres que Crean, Las Brujas Migrantes, Las Feministas Comunitarias and La Asociación Pachamama Mujeres en Acción (APAMUAC). These groups were involved in planning the different aspects of the event such as organizing the cultural performances, reserving the space, getting the sound equipment and in promoting the event. I was able to videotape the event this year and Sedoac agreed to have the two videos I made of the festival posted on their YouTube channel. Although these organizations promote the rights of domestic workers within their respective groups of women in different ways, this is the time when they unite efforts to achieve their ultimate goal, that El Convenio 189 will be reformed.  Another important event for which these organizations come together is El Congreso Sobre Empleo de Hogar y Cuidados. This event was held for the first time last year on October 1st and since it was successful, an international Congreso is being planned for next year. El Congreso was a day long event where scholars, leaders from the different organizations and political leaders had presentations and discussions on labor rights and El Convenio 189.

El Grupo Turin was created in 2012 by the members of the domestic work organizations mentioned previously. Their main purpose, again, is to promote the regulation of domestic work legislation as proposed by El Convenio 189 through advocacy politics and social justice awareness. Most importantly, this group openly recognizes “the economic and social value of domestic work” and categorizes the ratification of El Convenio as “an end to exclusion and modern slavery.” Sedoac’s president, Carolina Elias, is part of El Grupo Turin so I was able to attend one of their meetings last week. The meeting was held at a seminar room in a community center that they are allowed to reserve on Saturday afternoons. I recognized many women there who had also been at the festival and learned about other organizations such as La Unión Sindical Obrera (USO) and el Territorio Doméstico. I also learned that the Saturday meetings always begin at 11:00 am but “they never say when it will end,” as one of the Sedoac members I had spoken to before informed me when an almost heated discussion ended abruptly, as did the meeting. An organization that is directly affiliated to the district was proposing that the organizations involved in El Grupo Turin can get an office space paid for by the district with the condition that their organization and El Grupo Turin become one organization. However, this was never in El Grupo Turin’s agenda and the members did not see why merging the two groups would be either necessary or beneficial to anyone. This would be an instance where an agreement, or simply an immediate agreement cannot be made because, perhaps, there are people who may have different interests from the main goal that was initially agreed on. This is to say that while El Grupo Turin’s main goal has always been the ratification of El Convenio 189, the district’s organization may view the established network this group has created as more valuable and its goal. This is a paradox in that while it is wrong to take credit or advantage of someone else’s hard-earned work, this is the only way Sedoac and the other organizations can further establish themselves by having a permanent location.

Spain’s economy was booming in 2000 because of the loans the country had taken, specially from the World Trade Bank, so most Spaniards had well paying jobs and many of them were able to become part of the middle class. This resulted in a large wave of Latin American migration to Spain, which was encouraged by the government, in order to fill in work positions that were unwanted. However, since the country had to start paying back loans and politicians became involved in money laundering, the economy has been plummeting. Spaniards are now finding themselves forced to look for low paying jobs that may not exist or that are occupied by immigrants. However, more and more Latin American immigrants are returning to their home countries because of the increasing rate of unemployment in Spain. This is creating an economic crisis in Latin American communities that depend on remittances being sent from abroad. These transnational economic problems point to the larger phenomenon of globalization and, consequently, the global chain of care that brought the first generation of the seven SEDOAC members together in 2005. This chain makes female workers face their positions as undocumented immigrants whose labor rights are violated, as mothers whose children are being taken care of by a poorer mother in their home countries and as a motherly figure to children that are not her own.

The influx of female Latin American immigrants into Spain who mainly found employment in the informal sector of domestic work quickly found that they did not have labor rights. Even though there was a labor law that was ratified in 1985, this law excluded domestic workers. El Real Decreto 1424 gave all workers certain rights in regard to getting a fair salary, having access to unemployment benefits and annual leave. However, el Decreto was discriminatory against domestic workers by denying them these rights because they are part of the informal sector of the economy. Therefore, Convenio 189 de la OIT (International Labor Organization, as translated in English) was created on June of 2011at the international Labor Conference in Switzerland. Convenio 189 gives domestic workers labor rights and works to improve their conditions. Since 2011, 25 countries including Italy, Ireland, Germany, Ecuador and the Philippines have ratified this law. However, the current political party in Spain, the People’s Party, has been in power for two terms and this is the only party that is explicitly against the ratification of the Convenio. This is the main issue that my organization, SEDOAC (Servicio Domestico Activo), has been trying to push the government to pass for years. Every year, SEDOAC comes together with other domestic work organizations such as Brujas Migrantes (Migrant Witches) to organize a political discussion and a consecutive festival before this law is revisited by the government. This year, these events took place on June 16th and 18th and the government, once again, voted against el Convenio on June 19th. This was a devastating decision for the thousands of workers in Spain this law could benefit greatly. Nevertheless, SEDOAC is a comprehensive organization whose interest is not only to continue fighting for el Convenio but also to use educative workshops and events to teach domestic migrant women about their rights and, subsequently, to provide a space of empowerment and self-growth.

Sources:

“Ministerio de Empleo y Seguridad Social: Que España firme YA el convenio internacional que protege a las trabajadoras del hogar. @empleogob ‏.” Change.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 June 2017.

Moré, Paloma. “Cuidados a personas mayores en Madrid y París: la trastienda de la investigación.” Sociología del Trabajo 84 (2015): 85-105.