
Workers Like All the Rest of Them
Domestic Service and the Rights of Labor in Twentieth-Century Chile
Elizabeth Quay Hutchison(Author)
Duke University Press
Published on 1. April 2022
Book
Hardback
228 pages
978-1-4780-1395-2 (ISBN)
Description
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.
Reviews / Votes
"Deeply researched, beautifully crafted, and historiographically and theoretically sophisticated, Workers Like All the Rest of Them 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, Workers Like All the Rest of Them 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, Workers Like All the Rest of Them opens many questions for further research. . . . This beautifully written and engaging book visualizes Chilean domestic workers' life and work." - Angela Vergara (H-LatAm, H-Net Reviews) "[Workers Like All the Rest of Them] 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. . . . [Workers Like All the Rest of Them] 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-Velaquez (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) "Workers Like All the Rest of Them 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)More details
Language
English
Place of publication
North Carolina
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
27 illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
485 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4780-1395-2 (9781478013952)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
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.
Content
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
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