#WomenSpeak: An Interview with brick maker Soledad Casals
My name is Soledad Casals. I was born on 11 August, 1982. I am the third of 13 siblings. I am a 5th generation worker from a Brick workers’ family. I am a mother of three girls and one boy, and have been married for fifteen years. As a brick worker, I represent the popular economy and I’m a proud member of the Bricks Industry of the Republic of Argentina Workers Union (UOLRA).
Work in the brick-making industry is often transmitted from one generation to another. However, many brick-making families work under precarious conditions in rural areas, with many kilns located in their own homes. Since I was born, I have known the entire brick production process. I grew up in mud and bricks. We have always done the work in a traditional way, sometimes with the intervention of the whole family.
In 2014, our family was visited by the UOLRA provincial delegate, Federico Feltes, who told us about our rights as workers and about the union. After that, our family joined the union and the cooperative to strengthen our rights as workers.
In 2016, our union’s General Secretary and the Board of Directors started a statute change to adapt to new realities. As a result, the Secretariats of Youth, Popular Economy, Interior, Human Rights, Equality and Gender, among others, were created. In 2019, I was elected as the union's first Gender Secretary. That same year, 3 other colleagues reached positions on the Board of Directors, a first in the history of our organisation.
2018 was a very special year for me. It is the year my fourth daughter was born. I started to go on labour in the middle of a UOLCA National Meeting of Brick workers, which was organised in the town of Fátima. I named my daughter Fatima, after the Cooperative of which I am a member, and after the name of the clinic that attended to the premature birth of my baby.
2. What are the biggest challenges you face at your work as a worker?
Women brick workers face many challenges, with women brick makers identifying themselves as workers as the most challenging. Our union has a national campaign called "I Work, Not Just Help", which aims to reach out to as many women as possible in our sector. We make them aware that they are workers and not just people who help their husbands and sons in brick production. Our challenge is to continue reinforcing the identity of women brick makers, and through this recognition, to make our sisters understand that they have rights and a union that can help them defend these rights.
Another challenge we face is the artisan model of our work. The work of creating artisan bricks is arduous and causes negative effects on our health. Skills trainings need to be professionalised to reduce the physical and emotional burden of the brick-making industry.
There is also the issue of children getting involved in their parents’ brick-making work, as many kilns operate at workers’ houses. As trade unionists, we have to campaign for the eradication of child labour in our country’s brick industry.
3. How can women workers work together to respond to these issues?
I think it is crucial for women brick makers to be protagonists in all kind of discussions and decision-making spaces. Women’s work and participation must be recognised in the production process, marketing and the administration of the economy, inside and outside the workplace. We also need to build awareness among women brick makers that they are workers with rights similar to men.
As women trade unionists, we must work together. Thus, as UOLRA is a BWI-affiliated organisation, in November 2020, for the first time, we organised the “Safe at Home, Safe at Work Campaign,” as part of the 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence. This kind of initiatives gave the union the opportunity to address women brick makers’ identity as workers, guided by ILO Convention 190 as a fundamental gender equality tool.
United, we stand. Only then, we can work to protect our labour rights and fight for the elimination of child labor in the industry as well.
4. What does an equal and better future mean to you?
It means that we are all subject to transformation. As long as we continue to deepen our professional and trade union trainings, using a strong human and workers’ perspective, we will be able to occupy more spaces for participation and leadership.
It means knowing our rights and transmitting our experiences to women who still find it difficult to recognise themselves as workers. An equal and better future for all must point to a future where we can all enjoy equality.
5. What role do you think women should play in the recovery from the COVID-19 crisis?
For the longest time, women have been subjected to multiple working hours, including care tasks. Despite our history, we have learned to be resilient and united by strengthening ourselves through solidarity.
By committing their ideas and activism, women can contribute a lot to the recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, mainly through the gender-based transformation of social concepts and collective action that promotes real changes in the world of work.
*#WomenSpeak is a monthly article on gender issues and concerns authored by BWI’s different affiliate women workers. It seeks to provide women workers more spaces and platforms to express their thoughts and concerns on a variety of issues that are important to them as workers and most especially, as women.