Many home-based workers are also caregivers, but for Marianet López Valenzuela caregiving is a 24/7 responsibility. She rises early every morning to get in a few hours work before her 73-year-old mother wakes at 11. Some days Rosa, who suffers with senile dementia, is able to dress and eat independently and helps prepare food and care for the plants. Other days she can scarcely get out of bed. Marianet never knows what she will face.
This has been her life since 2022 when her mother could no longer live on her own. Marianet, moved from her apartment to this house in the Comuna del Bosque area of Santiago to care for her.
“Some days it’s hard for me, but it is also rewarding,” said a tearful Marianet, 53. “I like being able to be with her. I recognize that now it’s my turn to help my mother, just as my mother helped me when I was a child. She is not a burden.” She bends down to pet their two-month-old dog, Mr. White,.
Martinet’s sister sometimes stays with their mother, but otherwise Marianet didn’t look for any outside support in her work as both an entrepreneur and caregiver. But then, one day she hurt her finger on a needle: “I realized I needed support from society, from the government.”
Through her long-time friend, “Pati” Patricia Coñoman Carrillo, she met “Tati” Tatiana Rojas. Through them, Mairenet became familiar with the work of COTRADO ALAC, a network of homeworker organizations in Latin American which is affiliated with HomeNet International. Martinet, a communist, saw a collective way forward.
“In our profession, we are not seen, we are not recognized. It’s hard work and it’s invisible work. We contribute to the economy, and so it’s only fair that we receive social security benefits. Independent work has the worse conditions, like slavery.” Marianet speaks emphatically, in concise sentences, like an activist.
She is now working with Tati and Pati, to re-activate a union that recognizes the work of all Chilean home-based workers: Sindicato de trabajadoras y trabajadores independientes y en domicilio lo Espejo. Elections for the inaugural board are in March 2025. “Our big hope is that many men and women join the union so we can work to improve our situation,” said Martinet.
Improving her own situation may at some point, take Martinet away from her home base.
She initially became a seamstress at home after her marriage of 21 years ended. But when the money proved inadequate to support herself and her two children, she started working in the transportation sector. She held many positions: coordinating, driving trucks, organizing and supervising a team. Despite taking on increased responsibilities, she was paid like an ordinary worker. When she asked for a raise, she was told she lacked university education.
Her children, who are now 32 and 23 years old, urged her to go to university. They cooked and took care of the house. After five years, Marianet had earned her degree in engineering logistics. She was 50. But then her mother’s needs took precedence, and she returned to sewing.
Her busy period is July to September when she makes costumes for Chile’s national holiday celebrations. She continues to go in new directions, recently teaching herself sublimation: a printing technique using heat and pressure to transfer designs to fabric. She uses sublimation to decorate t-shirts and bags. Currently, she’s making conference bags for the March meeting of COTRADO ALAC. She pulls out some colourful trim she’s considering using to decorate the bags.
“Sewing is a matter of love,” she maintains, fingering the trim. “And it’s also an art because I extend my hands and create things.”
