MULHERES, MIGRANTES, MILITANTES

Tecendo redes globais de cuidados no setor do trabalho doméstico em São Paulo

Abstract

As a late-developing country with immense social and economic inequalities, Brazil has become both a sender and destination country for migrant domestic workers.  The migrant domestic workers arriving in Brazil from other countries are entering a new/old logic of global care work chains.  The existence of these care work chains is changing the dynamics of the distribution of paid and unpaid domestic work, reconfiguring social and labor relations that are crosscut by class, race and gender in Brazil.  In the city of Sao Paulo where the largest number of migrant workers in the country are concentrated, working women of diverse national origins are in the vanguard of these transnational care chains, and are redefining their roles as caregivers, immigrants, and activists.  In this article, we will explore the theoretical conceptualization and practical functioning of these global care work networks, with a specific look at South-South networks.  In particular, this article will analyze the union experiences of migrant domestic workers in Sao Paulo, documenting the challenges and opportunities for collective action in favor of migrant worker rights on a local, national and international level. We argue that union activism for and by migrant domestic workers advanced greatly in a short time frame, due to the consolidation of strategic partnerships and the development of new union leaders, but at the same time, this activism is delimited by the lack of associative and structural union power, as well as by the unfavorable economic conjecture.