“Deeply researched, beautifully crafted, and historiographically and theoretically sophisticated, <i>Workers Like All the Rest of Them</i> is a major contribution to the growing literature on domestic workers and their organizing efforts in the face of legal, cultural, social, and political barriers. Elizabeth Quay Hutchison illuminates the intricacies of social movements in Chile, uncovering the centrality of the Catholic Church to maintaining and increasing domestic worker organization. Hutchison significantly expands our understanding of the interaction between social processes, law, and social movements in the development of domestic worker activism.” - Eileen Boris, author of (Making the Woman Worker: Precarious Labor and the Fight for Global Standards, 1919-2019) “Presenting a series of timely, important, and often surprising arguments, <i>Workers Like All the Rest of Them</i> will find an audience among Chileanists, historians of gender and labor, as well as social science scholars interested in domestic work around the world.” - Nara B. Milanich, author of (Paternity: The Elusive Quest for the Father) “As one of the first histories of domestic labor in Chile, <i>Workers Like All the Rest of Them </i>opens many questions for further research. . . . This beautifully written and engaging book visualizes Chilean domestic workers' life and work.” - Ángela Vergara (H-LatAm, H-Net Reviews) “[<i>Workers Like All the Rest of Them</i>] proposes that domestic workers struggled strategically and made alliances with other social actors throughout the twentieth century to obtain labor rights and recognition. . . . [Hutchison’s] book contributes not only by illuminating a hidden history, but as a tool to combat the inequalities that it uncovers." - Javiera Letelier (A Contracorriente) “A deeply researched and elegantly written work. . . . [<i>Workers Like All the Rest of Them</i>] is an excellent work that has wide application and relevance well beyond its Chilean context for scholars of (women’s) labor rights, urban migration, the development of democracy, and the formation of nation-states throughout the world.” - Mark Overmyer-Veláquez (The Americas) "I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Chilean or Latin American Feminist, Women’s, and Gender history, and also for any specialists in Chilean Labor and Social History. The text is very strong, in particular in regard to the History of the Chilean women domestic workers’ movement." - Hillary Hiner (Journal of Social History) "<i>Workers Like All the Rest of Them</i> is a fascinating study that makes several valuable advances. . . . This book will undoubtedly be of interest to students and scholars of labor history, gender studies, and Latin American studies, as well as those beyond academia who wish to better understand the direction that labor relations might be headed in our own era of increasingly precarious and informal employment." - Edward Brudney (American Historical Review)

In Workers Like All the Rest of Them, Elizabeth Quay Hutchison recounts the long struggle for domestic workers’ recognition and rights in Chile across the twentieth century. Hutchison traces the legal and social history of domestic workers and their rights, outlining their transition from slavery to servitude. For most of the twentieth century, domestic service remained one of the key “underdeveloped” sectors in Chile’s modernizing economy. Hutchison argues that the predominance of women in that underpaid, underregulated labor sector provides one key to persistent gender and class inequality. Through archival research, firsthand accounts, and interviews with veteran activists, Hutchison challenges domestic workers’ exclusion from Chilean history and reveals how and under what conditions they mobilized for change, forging alliances with everyone from Catholic Church leaders and legislators to feminists and political party leaders. Hutchison contributes to a growing global conversation among activists and scholars about domestic workers’ rights, providing a lens for understanding how the changing structure of domestic work and worker activism has both perpetuated and challenged forms of ethnic, gender, and social inequality.
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Illustrations  xi
Abbreviations  xiii
Acknowledgments  xv
Introduction. Empleadas Lost and Fount  1
1. From Servants to Workers in Chile  15
2. Fighting Exclusion: Domestic Workers and Their Allies Demand Labor Legislation, 1923–1945  36
3. Rites and Rights: Catholic Association by and for Domestic Workers, 1947–1964  68
4. Domestic Workers’ Movements in Reform and Revolution, 1967–1973  102
5. Women’s Rights, Workers' Rights: Military Rule and Domestic Worker Activism  128
Conclusion. The Inequities of Service, Past and Present  156
Notes  167
Bibliography  197
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781478014898
Publisert
2022-04-01
Utgiver
Duke University Press
Vekt
272 gr
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
228

Biografisk notat

Elizabeth Quay Hutchison is Professor of Latin American History and Associate Vice President for Equity and Inclusion at The University of New Mexico. She is the author of Labors Appropriate to Their Sex: Gender, Labor, and Politics in Urban Chile, 1900–1930 and coeditor of The Chile Reader: History, Culture, Politics, both also published by Duke University Press.