opinion

Marta Matamoros, outspoken and committed

by Raúl Leis R. --- raulleisr@hotmail.com

The Panamanian labor movement is a key component of the voices that make up the nacional chorus that shapes this country, Marta Matamoros’s was an irreplaceable voice. Now she is no longer with us physically, but her legacy enlightens us with her full life of struggle and solidarity. This acquires force at the start of a new year in which we are called to take notice thata economic growth without equity, environmental quality, justice or human rights is a fallacy.

Marta Matamoros told part of her story in this way: “I didn’t have children, I don’t have children, but I was always concerned for the woman who’s a mother. In the factory I would see the fatigue of the pregnant women. The women worked until the last day, and left to give birth, and many lost their jobs afterwards. The women were subject to the whim of management. In 1940 we also had a bunch of little shops in little rooms when the female workers were horrible exploited. Four or five workers in a little room making work clothes for Salsipuedes had to sew a dozen pair of pants for a dollar. It was tremendous exploitation!

“I began to have more relations with the working women of the 40s in this area. When the union was founded in 1943, there were more men than women at first, but by 1945 the union began to have more women, and they were very enthusiastic. Thus in 1946 thousands of workers mobilized to support the law giving maternity protection to women workers that ended up being approved in the 1946 constitution. This was very important! There were three union representatives on the committee that studied the proposal. I headed the struggle to present the proposed maternity protection law for workers, which gave six weeks before childbirth and eight weeks afterwards of paid leave. With the help of other compañeras --- and compañeros, naturally --- we drafted the proposal and gathered thousands of signatures. Every woman made the effort to collect signatures of other women, workers and housewives.

“We had a great demonstration to present our proposal to the National Assembly in which, among the others who turned out, was our clothing makers’ union. (Remember as well that the residents of Panama Viejo were fighting for the land for their houses.) Deputies Ester de Calvo and Gumercinda Páez received our demands and presented them, and we stayed and applied leverage --- and we won!

“The owners opposed it! And they came back with something tremendous!

“When they figured out what had been approved, they rebelled and mounted a persecution against pregnant women. The bosses snooped around to see who was pregnant in order to fire them, but the union fought to rehire them. It was a tremendous battle! The owners insulted the working women and hurled improprieties, like, for example: “if you want me to pay for the kids…” and things like that.

“It was a period of struggle, of great struggle. When the woman came back to work after 14 weeks, the owners would say: “we have no job, we’re laying off.” It was as a punishment, a reprisal for having taken time off to have a child. Our union --- I say “our,” although now I’m retired but I feel like part of it --- had to fight arduously to rehire those who were fired. When the 1972 constitution came, on the basis of what had gone before we called upon women and came up with a proposal. It was another triumph for our organization, now calling itself the Sindicato Nacional de la Industria de Confeccion de Ropa because we had to change the name after 25 years.

“How far we had come from the Sindicato de Satres, with 95 women and five tailors! In 1968 there were 300 of us members in the organization, and when General Torrijos gave guarantees to the unions in 1970, after the coup, people were glad and it wasn’t long until we were 3,000, always fewer men and more women.

 “It was the case when the 1972 constitution came we raised the issue of one year maternity leave, in which no woman could be fired for one year after giving birth. This was another triumph of ours, and another fit for the owners. So much so that in a meeting with General Torrijos and his ministers, in which we were called to expound our leave proposal, I spoke of it and one of the high officials said: ‘Well, what Mrs. Matamoros wants is that we never fire any working woman --- because every year they have a child! Clearly, it’s totally in jest, but such is the law!’ I told him: ‘I have no children.’

“But it satisfies me that I was the one who proposed this, it was my effort and we got it, and it’s a gain that few countries have, and that’s how we won it.”

Editor’s note: Marta Matamoros died on December 28, at the age of 96