Becoming ambivalent subjects of labour rights: subaltern mobilisations, the law and the state

ABSTRACT

This article engages with feminist debates on the possibilities and limitations of a politics of rights through a study of domestic workers’ mobilisations in Brazil. Although rights are always ambivalent or limited, they are nonetheless necessary to subaltern groups and represent one of their main repertoires of contention. More specifically, I propose to look empirically at what rights do once they are won, and how a legislative victory affects the movement that was demanding those rights. I show that the law 150/2015 that extends basic labour rights to domestic workers in Brazil has had ambivalent effects: while it maintains a differentiated legal status for domestic workers and was adopted amidst a hostile political context that prevents its good implementation, the law has enabled, nonetheless, the strengthening of a rights-based idea of citizenship and opened new mobilisational opportunities for domestic workers. I argue that rights contribute to the formation of active political subjects, and can be analysed as a powerful resource for subaltern mobilisations.

KEYWORDS:

• Domestic workers
• subaltern
• labour rights
• legal mobilisations
• Brazil

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Rosa da Motta Jesus, President of the union of domestic workers of Franca, July 2017.

2. The law defines a domestic worker as a person who provides her personal service to private families in exchange for a salary, which includes cleaners, carers, nannies, cooks, gardeners and drivers. The expression chosen in the law is ‘empregada doméstica’, literally, ‘house employee’, but better translated as ‘maid’ because of its connotation of servitude. Empregada, or empregada doméstica, is the most common term used in Brazil. In contrast, the unions of domestic workers prefer the term ‘domestic workers’ precisely to insist on their status as workers, as opposed to a serving maid with no rights.

3. Transatlantic Slave Trade database: http://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates

4. I have kept interviewees’ real names as the union leaders are public figures, and making their history more visible is an important part of this research. However, the non-unionised are referred to only by their first name so that they cannot be identified.

5. For more details about the history of the movement, see Kofes (2001) and Bernardino-Costa (2015).

6. Expression used by a leader of the union of Franca: ‘uma faca de dois gumes’.

7. See for instance the coverage of the national magazine Veja between January and April 2013: https://veja.abril.com.br/economia/pec-das-domesticas-sai-a-empregada-entra-a-lava-louca/, and https://veja.abril.com.br/economia/pec-das-domesticas-pode-elevar-despesas-de-familias-com-empregados-em-quase-40/(lastconsulted,16/05/2019)

8. Interview with Luiz Marcolino, local representative of the Ministry of Labour for the state of São Paulo, May 2016.

9. See his declaration in: Ventura (2020), ‘Guedes diz que dólar alto é bom: “empregada doméstica estava indo para Disney, uma festa danada”’, published in O Globo, 12/02/2020: https://oglobo.globo.com/economia/guedes-diz-que-dolar-alto-bom-empregada-domestica-estava-indo-para-disney-uma-festa-danada-24245365

10. This expression is said to have emerged with the Law Feijó, adopted in 1831, under the pressure of the British Empire, to prohibit the international traffic of African slaves in direction of Brazil. The law was never applied and illegal traffic of slaves continued, leading to the expression ‘a law for the British to see’.

11. Creuza Maria de Oliveira, President of FENATRAD at the time of the interview, August 2015.

12. Marinalva, non-unionised domestic worker, March 2016.

13. Study published in the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, on 10/03/2015: http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mercado/2015/03/1600561-apos-pec-dos-domesticos-acoes-na-justica-em-sp-sobem-25-em-2014.shtml

14. Cristina Borges, leader of Franca’s union at the time of the interview, September 2017.

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Notes on contributors

Louisa Acciari

Louisa Acciari is a Research Fellow and Co-director of the Centre for Gender and Disaster at the University College London (UCL). She holds a PhD in Gender Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and has worked for two years as a Post-doctoral Researcher at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Department of Sociology, before joining UCL. She remains a Research Associate of the Núcleo de Estudos em Sexualidade e Gênero (NESEG) of the UFRJ.