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Edna worked at SEATECH until her body gave out. Now she
heads the organization “Fundación Manos Muertas.” Tuna “made
in Colombia” is produced cheaply and exported to the world,
but it is contaminated with the physical and emotional
suffering of a growing number of men and women who are
victims of ruthless feudalist practices.
-Where did you use to work?
-I worked at
SEATECH
for more than 15 years, but three years ago I had to stop
working because I became physically disabled. I have a
muscular disease known as fibromyalgia, and I also suffer
from carpal tunnel syndrome and myofascial pain syndrome.
-What tasks did you perform at the company?
-The first five years I was there I worked in processing,
where we handled the tuna. Then I received training and went
on to oversee canning, where I worked long hours. I had to
control the machines that processed nearly 300 cans of tuna
per minute.
There I developed repetitive strain injuries, working on my
feet for more than 16 hours with almost no breaks.
I worked for many years in those tasks.
When I left,
my body couldn’t stand the pain and the fatigue any more. I
felt like my body would not hold up.
-Is there a cafeteria at the plant where you can eat?
-There is a cafeteria, but we weren’t authorized to have
lunch there. If we were still working by dinner time –and
that happened almost every day– they gave us some bread and
a soda, which we called ‘panela’ (sugarloaf) water. That was
all we were allowed to eat after lunch.
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Many women workers at SEATECH have lost their
families as a result of illnesses they developed
at work, because it’s very hard to live with
someone who suffers and complains constantly
about the pain.
Pain leads to depression, no matter how young
you are. |
It was very
hard to withstand so many hours of work with so little in
our stomachs, but if we complained they would tell us that
for each of us there were 100 more people who were dying for
our job.
The same thing happened with bathroom breaks. We weren’t
free to go whenever we wanted; they only gave us permission
when we couldn’t stand it any longer. If we complained that
this was an unfair and uncomfortable situation, they would
hurl the same threat at us.
At the post I occupied in the machine, if I wanted to go to
the bathroom they had to get somebody to take over for me.
But they rarely did, and I had to rush to the bathroom,
hoping they wouldn’t see that I’d left the machine
unattended, risking my job.
-Couldn’t you stop the machine?
-If I stopped it I had to have a valid reason. Being thirsty
or needing to relieve yourself were not valid excuses. In
those cases, they would penalize me for the time the machine
was not running, taking it out of my pay.
-In Nicaragua’s free trade zone, where women workers are not
free to go to the bathroom whenever they need to either, the
workers have had to resort to not drinking water…
-We have to do the same thing here. I practically stopped
drinking water, and I would try not to go to the bathroom at
all. It’s no wonder that now I have kidney problems.
With the little time we were given to eat our meals, the
irregular eating hours, and the long hours we went without
food, a lot of workers suffered from stomach, liver,
gastritis and ulcer problems.
-Working conditions were appalling, but were the wages high?
-They were above the mean wage, because in the region
workers are usually paid minimum wage for most similar jobs.
But there’s a catch there, which complicates things. When
workers first start at the company, they’re told that
they’ll be paid the base salary for their activity, but they
are also promised that they will received a bonus if they
meet the productivity target the company establishes for
them.
And to earn that bonus workers put in 16 hours workdays with
no breaks, growing sick and ignoring the symptoms until it’s
too late.
-What’s the company’s financial situation?
-Economically it’s doing really well. Although management
claims it’s having problems and is forced to periodically
suspend activities, that’s not really true. I sincerely
believe, like many workers, that these “stoppages”
(temporary plant closures) are done with the sole purpose of
undermining the union and laying off any workers who’ve
joined it.
-What happens when the company finds out a worker is sick?
-It tries to find any excuse to fire that worker, or simply
tells him or her that the task is being eliminated and the
company won’t be needing his or her services.
I know of many women workers who have been told that, and
not knowing any better and having no one to advise them,
they left work. And the company is not held responsible.
That’s what we’re trying to change now with
Fundación
Manos Muertas.
We can’t allow this to continue because women are not
properly informed.
-If you could turn back time…
-Would I choose to work again at the company…?
-Yes.
-Right now I’m in the process of being reassigned and I know
that sooner or later I’ll be given another job at the
company, but the truth is I’m hoping that moment will never
come.
The work at
SEATECH doesn’t just affect your health physically, it also
affects your mental health and the relationship with your
family.
Many women workers at SEATECH have lost their families as a
result of illnesses they developed at work, because it’s
very hard to live with someone who suffers and complains
constantly about the pain. Pain leads to depression, no
matter how young you are.
That’s how many of the women who come to Fundación Manos
Muertas feel: useless and miserable.
You have to
understand how it is for us: it’s very difficult to lead a
normal life when you go to bed in pain and wake up in pain.
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