Declaration for International Workers' Day
The commemoration of International Workers' Day finds all of humanity in an unusually painful and difficult situation. The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns have brought inequalities to the forefront in a vivid and radical way, and have also revealed the vulnerability and precariousness of the hegemonic civilizational model.
They have also highlighted the vulnerability and lack of protection, not only in terms of health, experienced by large segments of the population, unable to sustain themselves. The shutdown of the vast majority of activities is generating a sharp reduction in employment, and is affecting workers in the informal sector much more severely, as they make up about half of the workforce in our region.
Social life has once again become concentrated in domestic and family units, where caregiving and reproductive tasks, as well as work and education, take place. The care of life is becoming visible in all its complexity and significance, revealing the full extent of women's contributions to social life, but also all the inequalities reproduced through the socio-sexual division of labor and the social neglect of sustaining life.
A majority of workers in the health, food, community agriculture, elder care, and cleaning sectors are women, and they are currently on the front lines of this major global crisis. They deserve both emotional recognition and essential, shared, and concrete support in the form of unrestricted job protection and support.
As feminist activists, academics and intellectuals who promote “to put life at the center of politics“We propose, in a very concrete way, an economy for life, without trade-offs, based on solidarity and care, and which is urgently expressed in concrete, non-deferrable measures.”
* Minimum living income: to support households with what is necessary for daily living and help eliminate the anxiety stemming from precariousness. It is also a recognition of the need to sustain life.
*Generation of basic infrastructure and services for the population that lacks them, a situation evidenced and exacerbated by the health emergency.
*Concrete actions to address violence against women, which has increased during the lockdown.
May 1st represents the struggle for dignity and social justice. Today, we experience this day amidst a crisis of enormous proportions, but we also live through a pivotal and urgent moment to bring about a complete shift towards a new civilization with stronger and more robust pillars of shared responsibility and solidarity, sustained by the vindication of the common good, dignified life, and the socialization of a broad understanding of the care economy.
April 30
CLACSO Working Group
Feminisms, resistance and emancipation
This statement expresses the position of the Working Group on Feminisms, Resistances and Emancipation and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
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