Domestic workers have had our international day since 1988. This date serves us to remember the comrades who fought our achievements and all that is lacking for our lives to be dignified and for society to be fair.

It is an international date, because beyond regional differences, which are many and profound, there is a generalized reality: we are workers with few rights, many of us are migrants and in irregular conditions, we do work that sustains society, but we can barely sustain ourselves. Generally we do not have the right to pensions, to health care, to paid vacations. We are marginalized, sometimes also in the unions, sometimes in the women’s movement. But we continue to stand up. We achieved laws, conventions – such as ILO 189 and 190 – and articulations.

We learned with anti-capitalist feminism that paid and unpaid care work is what guarantees that people can reproduce our labor force, but also our lives, families and communities. We also noticed that it is invisible work, little recognized, and does not enter into any economic analysis. But it is precisely from this work that we stand up to demand rights and organize with others to change society for everyone. That is why we say:

It is not “help”, it is work.

We claim our history of struggle to make the invisible visible. We organize ourselves, in unions, in feminism, for a society with care at the center.

We invite all domestic workers to break the isolation and organize.

We are neither cleaning girls nor servants. We are domestic workers with rights.

 

Red de Trabajadoras Domésticas- Honduras; Territorio Doméstico- Spain; SINDUCAP-Sindicato Nacional Unitario Inter empresa Trabajadoras y Trabajadores de Casa Particular-  Chile; CACEH Nacional- Centro Nacional para la Capacitación Profesional y Liderazgo de las Empleadas del Hogar A.C.- Mexico; «Respect Berlin» Germany; Casa Fem- Paraguay; AMUMRA-Asociación Mujeres Unidas, Migrantes, y Refugiadas en Argentina; SINDECAF- Sindicato de Empleadas de Casas de Familia de San Juan- Argentina; APECAF- Asociación Personal de Casas de Familia- Córdoba –Argentina; SECFER- Sindicato de Empleadas en Casas de Familia de Entre Ríos- Argentina; ASTCP- Asociación sindical de trabajadoras de casas particulares de San Luis- Argentina; Frente Popular Darío Santillán Corriente Plurinacional; Observatorio del Derecho social- CTA/ Feminismo Sindical- Argentina; Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.