Labor organization, struggle strategies and gender demands in unions in today’s Mar del Plata

Abstract

The work examines union organization with a gender perspective in four private sector unions in the city of Mar del Plata, in the last decade. It seeks to understand the barriers that women face to participate in union politics and analyze the experiences of female organization and participation, based on the struggle strategies and gender demands in the gastronomic, fillet and packaging, textile and pastry chef unions. It is based on individual and collective research that has been carried out since 2018, and on interviews, field notes and secondary sources.

The article is structured in three parts. The first section refers to a brief state of the art on research linked to labor and union organization in a gender perspective today. The second addresses the problems and difficulties that women workers face when organizing politically and unionly in the four selected Mar del Plata unions. The last section highlights different strategies and gender demands carried out in the sectors studied.