Women Workers

1
Women Workers Voices from Kenya and Nicaragua

• Maggie Opondo
• University of Nairobi
• Department of Geography Environmental Studies

Marina Prieto-Carron University of
Bristol Department of Politics
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Kenyas Cut Flower Industry

• Globalizations success story
• Oldest and most successful in Africa
• 2nd largest foreign exchange earner
• Employment (40,000-50,000)
• Feminized and flexible labor strategies
• High levels of non-permanent work

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Female workers in a packhouse
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Power structures

• Supply chain relationships competition, buyer
  control, intense pressure
• Pushing down the risks for volumes and prices
  buyers gt suppliers/producers gt workers
• Climate of powerlessness and uncertainty
• Precariously employed

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Limiting workers participation?

• Insecure forms of employment (temporary, casual,
  migrant and seasonal)
• Compulsory and excessive overtime
• last year I had a baby and could even go back
  at midnight and the childs health was really
  affected. There is a time I stayed for two days
  without my child because I would leave early in
  the morning and get back home very late at
  night.

6
Limiting workers participation?

• Supervisor abuse
• pregnancy is not in the hands but in the
  stomach (Female workers imitate male supervisor
  deriding light duties for expectant mothers)
• Health and safety
• my baby refused to breastfeed because my milk
  was smelling of chemicals (Breastfeeding mother)

7
Limiting workers participation?

• Restriction of reproductive rights
• most of us here have abortions, even at eight
  months to avoid the risk of being sacked (Female
  casual worker)
• Sexual harassment
• when a male supervisor seduces a female worker
  and this doesnt bear fruit, he can use thorax
  (i.e. job power to win that female worker
  (Female worker)

8
Limiting workers participation?

• Living wage?
• It is not enough at all. For housing I pay KSh
  400, school fees are about KSh 500 per month,
  food about KSh 1500 , water about KSh 200,
  clothing about KSh 600, and sickness which varies
  and since the salary is about KSh 3000 per month,
  then I strain to make ends meet (Female
  worker)

9
Empowering workers

• Participatory social auditing effective in
  uncovering workplace issues gender issues
• Ensures authentic information and involves
  marginalized groups of workers
• Builds trust and promotes dialogue, and expose
  workplace issues
• Empowers workers

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In the struggle together? civil society

• NGOs increasingly visible flower campaign
• Trade union apathy
• It is as if the union the unions just want
  money from us
• Role play
• Entire unionizable workforce sacked and replaced
  with new employees, without the union taking
  action
• Gender committees in 2002 - one gender committee
  in (2006) several
• Transnational alliances of civil society
  organisations

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(No Transcript)
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Nicaragua Banana Industry

• Banana sector in recession
• Independent producers
• Chiquita only buyer CSR Programme, Code of
  Conduct, some good practices, gender issues
• Feminisised and flexible labour strategies
  Employment of women in packing houses, high
  levels of non-permanent jobs, esp. for women
• The Gendered Nature of the International
  Political Economy of the Banana Sector . Example
  only men as supervisor Only the men are
  promoted, only opportunities are given to them.
  (Burden of reproductive role of women, skills,
  gender segregation of work, invisibility of
  womens work).

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A female worker in a Packhouse
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Power structures

• Supply chain relationships competition, buyer
  control, intense pressure
• Pushing down the risks for volumes and prices
  buyers gt suppliers/producers gt workers
• Climate of powerlessness and uncertainty
• Precariously employed

15
Limiting workers participation?

• Insecure forms of employment
• There is a problem in Nicaragua with the
  temporary contracts, this is so vulgar, they want
  to take away rights to the poor temporary
  workers, they want workers fighting to each
  other (Rosana, women banana worker and trade
  unionist)
• There are fincas where the workers sign 3 or 4
  contracts a year . This way the workers lose
  their social provisions. They keep them like that
  for up to two years, then they are sacked
  (Julia, women banana worker)
• Compulsory and excessive overtime
• we do not have time for leisure, because we do
  not even have time to wash all the dirty clothes
  that are waiting for us at home. That is our
  sport. This is not taken into account by the
  company (Amparo, women banana worker)
• I have time for nothing because I go out at 3
  oclock in the morning and then until the loading
  is finished at about 9 oclock at night. Then I
  go home just to sleep, I dont even feel like
  eating (Diana, women banana worker)

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Limiting workers participation?

• Supervisor abuse
• We call them employers middle management,
  because they are the ones who repress us. But for
  me they receive orders to do that. I dont think
  that the employers do all those things to us just
  because of them and that the owners dont know
  what they do. Then the employers receive those
  orders from someone (Petrona)
• Health and safety
• In the finca San Carlos the workplace is not
  clean, starting by the entrance that is a
  horrible forest. We dont have adequate sanitary
  services or canteen. The kitchen is a disaster,
  in the store room for the food, the mice go
  through the rice and sugar (Rosita)
• Not only the woman working in the banana
  plantations is exposed to the agricultural
  chemicals, also the workers wife, because the
  worker who works all day long with them and at
  night, when he gets home he does not have a bath
  at those hours then he goes to bed with his wife
  there is direct contact and she is also infected.
  That is why there are women who do not work in
  the banana plantations but they are also
  infected (Amparo)

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Limiting workers participation?

• Restriction of reproductive rights
• If you are pregnant, you are fired and if it is
  possible the day after giving birth you will be
  re-employed (Ana)
• Sexual harassment
• I was transferred to different jobs and in each
  of them, the boss tried something with me
  (Mercedes)
• Not only the bosses, but also men in middle
  management positions tried this (Graciela)
• Sexual harassment is nothing new but that all
  women have had to put with that (Sonsoles)

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Limiting workers participation?

• Living wage?
• For the wages to be fair it should be above
  C50 per day because a pound of rice costs C4, a
  pound of sugar C4 Now if we wanted to eat some
  meat, maybe we could only do it once a week
  ((Maria del Mar)
• (note women reported it is around C14 for
  eight hours of work. 1C14 in 2001)
• if we do not work the number of boxes to fill a
  truck or Chiquita rejects the production, we do
  not get paid and they only give us some rice and
  beans (Manuela)

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Limiting workers participation?Childcare issues

• Here in Nicaragua the problem for the women is
  that the men are irresponsible, they dont want
  to bring up their own children, they go with
  another woman and leave their own home. Then the
  woman must decide to stay single, alone with her
  children (.), its better to stay alone
  (Rosita)
• My daughter, who works in the finca San Luis,
  has 2 sons. She makes C 40.00 when they make 3
  trucks. She pays for someone to take care of the
  children and has to share what she earns, for
  example if she makes C 20.00 she gives half of
  it and she keeps C 10.00. What is she going to
  do if she has to pay for the water and the
  light? (Angela)
• It is quite common that a relative or neighbour
  abuses the young girls of 12 or 13. I think that
  at national level, Chinandega is where more
  children under 10 are murdered. Here, there are a
  lot of rapes, precisely because women have to go
  to work and there are no adults who can control
  the house. usually it is the young girls that
  look after the youngest sister and brothers. Also
  for the girls there is the belief that what is
  the point of their studies if then a man will
  start going out with her and she will have lots
  of children (Rosita)

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Empowering workers - the struggle together of
the civil society?

• Key to empowerment Organisation
• No womens organisations in this sector or local
  monitoring groups like in the maquila
• Trade unions are being victimised
• Transnational alliances of banana trade unions
• COSILBA (Coalition of Latin American Banana
  Unions)
• Womens units revolution inside the patriarchal
  structures of the trade unions
• Link of workplace issues gender issues with
  womens lives outside the workplace
• Empowers women workers at the workplace, homes
  and communities

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Do CSR/codes make a difference to women workers
in Nicaragua and Kenya?

• Barriers, diverse places/spaces
• Gender relations (beyond the workplace)
• Globalisation (Neo-liberal globalisation)
• North-south relations
• CSR/Codes dictate who participates and whose
  voices count power and participation
• Tackling structural issues to improve women
  workers working conditions/ lives
• CSR/Codes implicated in perpetuating inequalities
• We want codes to have a positive impact on our
  welfare, and we want you to help us with this
  (Rosita)