Miners' wives lead the way In October 1942, outside the small Bolivian town of Oruro, a miners' wife, Maria Barzola, and hundreds of her followers were shot by the army on a demonstration to protest the low level of miners' wages. The 60-year old Maria, who was leading the demonstration, became a heroine of her people and is a symbol of the fight of silver, tin and copper miners' wives throughout Boliva which continues unabated to this day.
Miners' wives organisations have existed in Bolivia since 1946 and are now a permanent feature. Known as Amas de casa Committees and headed by a permanent national structure, they began to organise women mainly around the question of food and prices.
Antonio MORENO
In each mining community in Bolivia, there is a pulperia (grocery store) which is owned by whoever owns the mine whether that be a private company or the government itself. Such stores have a monopoly and there are frequent shortages of basic commodities and price rises caused by spiralling inflation. In such cases the 'amas de casa' committees usually organise to demand action from the local union, sometimes turning out onto the streets of the campamento (community or village) and marching to where the union meetings are held.
But the women do not just meet when there is something pressing like this to discuss. In many areas they will meet two or three times a week to discuss various day-to-day issues ranging from education, sickness and health, work with the local peasant women, etc. In many cases they are better organised than the men and nowadays many of the women attend the union branch meetings as well. In strike situations these organisations play a key role in mobilising the community in support of workers demands.
In her book, Si me permitan hablar (Let me Speak), miner's wife Domitila describes her 'amas de casa' committee established in 1961 by sixty women whose miner husbands were all in jail at the time for trade-union activity. They got together to demand their husbands' release and the women mounted a hunger strike which was eventually successful. In the end, several hundred women began to come to the meetings and up to 5,000 were mobilised on demonstrations.
Domitila explains the impact that this had on the women themselves: 'As women we had been raised from the cradle with the notion that women are only meant for the kitchen and to look after the children, that they are incapable of involving themselves in important
Hunger strike in La Paz (DR)
ORGANIZACIONE
FEMENINAS
BARRIOS
PULARE
International Viewpoint 11 March 1985
work. Above all, they should not be al lowed to take an interest in polities.'
With the establishment of the miners' wives committees all this began to change.
The national organisation of miners' wives has now been meeting regularly for the last four or five years and have links with the unions nationally also.
Miners' wives representatives were present at the last congress of the COB (the
Bolivian trade-union confederation) on
August 6 (See International Viewpoint,
No 63, November 12, 1984).
In fact, as the crisis in Bolivia mounts and the struggle of the workers' organisations intensifies, the role of the women in general and the miners' wives organisations in particular is becoming more and more crucial.
Inflation in the country is now rampant. pant. In October 1982, for example, there were 44 pesos to one American dollar. Currently, there are 45,000 pesos to the dollar.
In recent weeks the COB has issued a call to all women in Bolivia to organise exactly as the miners' wives are organised in their communities and to take on the organisation and distribution of food. They are suggesting that local women's committees should take over the private and state-owned food storage depots and sell food at the legal prices as opposed to the prices dictated by inflation or by profiteers and gangsters.
If women do begin to organise on this kind of scale (and it is not clear as we go to press what the developments have been), then they will be in the forefront of the confrontation with the private sector and with the government itself.
Because of the struggle of the miners' wives the need for women to organise is now recognised by the trade-union movement as a whole and the 'amas de casa' committees have become a model for all women to follow. Women have also been organised in the past around Issues such as forced sterilisation introduced through the US aid programmes; and within the textile industry where many women work. Few women go out to work in Bolivia, but most women are forced to take on extra paid work in the house, such as washing, or are often seen selling in the street.
Women are starting to organise in the workplaces as well, however, and in particular women workers in the government sector have recently set up a national union. Article 104 of the constitution banned trade unions for all government employees and it was largely the women who defied the ban and got the union organised. They now lead and run the union and have been in the forefront of COB actions in the last year.
The heroic struggle of Bolivian women and of the miners' wives in particular have propelled women to the forefront of the labour movement where they are best placed to bring forward their own demands. The self-organisation of women on a national and local level has been and still is a vital component of this process. International Viewpoint 11 March 1985
Mexican women fight for their rights (DR)
MEXICO