Citizenship and social practices: disputes between workers and employers through union mediation

Abstract

In this article I intend to describe the processing of labor disputes between domestic workers and employers, acted by the domestic workers trade union at Campinas. This practices are based on the interlocution among disputants, union members and lawyers. The aim is to verify the suggestion made by Telles (1993: 1) about the possibility of citizenship being born from social practices in public spaces through negotiation between actors. These events work as “dialogical exercises” for domestic workers and their employers (which are not much used to talking to each other about their claims). The crucial feature of these events is the possibility for the disputants to talk freely, and therefore seek to convince the other part through verbal reasoning. Besides, a symbolic dispute towards the definition of roles, rights and duties takes place. Those are the reasons why, as it is my hope to demonstrate, the domestic workers union is an arena that allows the building of a public discourse referring to rights, that leans on labor law.