According to the platform #SindicalismoConNosotras, more than 150 women gathered on April 1st at the launch of the self-convened feminist portal that seeks to revitalize the way of doing trade unionism and be a tool of defense for workers, especially for women and dissidents.
As a platform under constant construction, #SindicalismoConNosotras has a structure that moves away from a traditional hierarchical organisation and gives way to horizontality. The National Councillor of the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras (CUT), President of the Federación Nacional de Trabajadoras y Trabajadores de Callcenter (Fetracall) and member of #SindicalismoConNosotras, Tamara Muñoz Valenzuela, explained that, “It is a horizontal platform, with spokespersons that will alternate and that, therefore, does not have any structure like those that trade union organisations currently have, but is transversal at national level. In addition, it proposes different lines of action: spaces for formation, reflection, advocacy and meetings to generate networks between the different members”.
The leader and member of the group expressed that the diagnostic of the labour reality made by the feminist platform identifies different critical points that, as a group, they have taken up and raised as banners of struggle.
Among the points that motivate the formation of #SindicalismoConNosotras is the current inaction of the trade union movement in the face of work that requires urgent representation, including domestic and care work, which has historically been ignored, made invisible and devalued, as well as informal work associated with the new platforms.
In this regard, Tamara Muñoz indicated that “As there is currently a change in production models, trade unionism needs to be revitalised by addressing these new forms of work and what the new forms of organising should be like. That is why we have thought about how transversal feminism can be in trade unionism and we have taken on this challenge, those informal workers who are not being represented by anyone, and also the task of organising these workers”.
#SindicalismoConNosotras has shared declarations of principles through its social networks that go further along the same lines, emphasising that in order to remove labour inequalities between men and women, more and more trade union organisations need to assume co-responsibility in care tasks and greater participation of women in the workplace as part of their agenda.
In this regard, the new platform stated that “It is necessary to raise awareness among the leadership and members of trade union organisations about the broad concept of paid and unpaid work, which are not traditional issues in the trade union world, but are important for the quality of work, family and personal life of its participants”.
Another of the points that #SindicalismoConNosotras considers fundamental to address is the precariousness of work that the pandemic has exposed and that mainly affects women. In this respect, their manifesto indicates that “we are the most affected, nearly 500,000 women have been made unemployed. Also, and considering unpaid work, the pandemic has highlighted the need for public policies to address care because otherwise, it falls on the shoulders of women”, adding, “We believe that an egalitarian society is not only one where more women enter the paid labour market or where more women make decisions. An equal society redistributes wealth and care and recognises the human rights of all, just because they are people”.
