Description
Book SynopsisElizabeth Quay Hutchison recounts the long struggle for domestic workers’ recognition and rights in Chile across the twentieth century, revealing how and under what conditions they mobilized for change.
Trade Review“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.” -- Ángela 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-Veláquez * The Americas *
Table of ContentsIllustrations 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
