Work session held between Kellys Unión Madrid and Territorio Doméstico, 2024. Photograph: Sinnosotras
Held on 30 Nov 2024
On 9 June 2022, Spain’s Congress of Deputies approved the ratification of Convention 189 in relation to decent employment for domestic workers, advocated by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). This significant victory was the outcome of years of struggle and the organisation of workers, who finally witnessed a commitment from the Spanish State to address their labour demands and acknowledge their work. Nevertheless, this road is not at its end and this commitment must materialise in the development of legislation and public policies related to care.
In the same vein of the struggle to improve labour conditions, the Kellys have spent years making the realities they face visible and calling for changes. Within the field of occupational health, they have obtained significant advances in gaining recognition for illnesses such as carpal tunnel syndrome, bursitis and epicondylitis, or “tennis elbow”, ailments associated with the repetitive movement of the arms and hands demanded by day-to-day work.
Within this context, the encounter here prolongs this struggle, fostering alliances between different collectives of female workers in the field of domestic work and care, cleaning, nursing, hotel cleaning — many of whom are migrants and racialised — who are responsible for caring for life. Together, these women seek to open a social dialogue on the need to recognise professional illnesses and occupational health in care-related and cleaning sectors. These jobs are still socially undervalued, which translates into widespread precarity: low salaries, limited health and safety prevention at work and no recognition for illnesses or the repercussions associated with such positions, for instance respiratory problems owing to contact with toxic products, physical injuries, chronic pain, among other health issues, which hinder access to dignified benefits that ensure adequate living conditions.
The encounter gets under way with a round-table discussion and presentation, where the different collectives of the participating female workers share their reflections, evaluations and analyses, as well as specific proposals to improve labour conditions and health, from social struggle and strategies of happiness. It culminates in a performance by Territorio Doméstico and a concert by the singer Ro Tirita, accompanied by the guitar of La Tomi, with both performing songs from the band Sudor Marika and other cumbias to dance to.
Organised by
Ro Tirita (Sudor Marika) and La Tomi
More information
Organised by
Museo Situado, Territorio Doméstico and Kellys Unión Madrid
Agenda
sábado 30 nov 2024 a las 18:30
Round table: Our Health at the Centre
Participants: Kellys Unión Madrid, Territorio Doméstico, SEDOAC (Servicio Doméstico Activo) and Plataforma Unitaria del Servicio de Ayuda a Domicilio (SAD)
sábado 30 nov 2024 a las 19:30
Presentation of the scheduled work process Without Us Women the World Doesn’t Move
sábado 30 nov 2024 a las 20:00
Concert by Ro Tirita ft. La Tomi
sábado 30 nov 2024 a las 20:20
Performance-catwalk: Broken Bodies. Territorio Doméstico
Participants
Kellys Unión Madrid is an autonomous association made up of hotel cleaners who aim to give visibility to labour conditions and contribute to improving their quality of life.
Plataforma Unitaria del Servicio de Ayuda a Domicilio (SAD) is an organisation that defends home help as a universal and essential service that must be managed publicly and under dignified conditions, instead of being outsourced to private companies. Its objectives include putting forward an evaluation of labour risks in homes, the recognition of professional illnesses and early retirement prior to sixty years of age.
Ro Tirita is a singer with Sudor Marika, a queer, dissident and feminist cumbia group from Argentina.
Servicio Doméstico Activo (SEDOAC) is a group which is united by a threefold discrimination: being women, migrants and domestic and care workers. The group demands full equality and the exercise of the social, political, labour and civil rights of domestic workers. Since 2019, they have managed the Centre of Empowerment for Domestic and Care Workers (CETHYC), located in the Madrid neighbourhood of Orcasitas, a place of encounter for domestic and care workers in Madrid, and for migrant women in general and collectives that defend the rights of people at risk of social exclusion.
Territorio Doméstico is an anti-racist feminist collective of women — many of them, but not all, domestic workers — who demand the rights of domestic and care workers.
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