“He didn’t come here to give up” – work

From the marble steps outside the tall ornate iron gate to the Capitol, Isabel Cortez points across the park to busy Andahuaylas Boulevard: there she used to go and clean up pussies and little trash with a broom and shovel.

– Then I cleaned the streets, now I clean Congress. Both jobs are important and heavy. The most difficult thing here is to meet those who have lived their whole lives in politics. I was so naive and innocent when I came here, says Isabel Cortez.

She began joining a union in 2009 out of anger over the insecurity she and her co-workers lived in. They were not employed by the municipality, but by companies from which the municipality purchased services.

– After each election, the new mayor canceled all contracts and hired companies for his friends. At work we met a locked door and were asked to hand over work clothes and collect severance pay the next day, you remember.

Rent and food for the children

An assistant enters the simple and spacious office and shows the work phone with a text message ready, which Isabel Cortez accepts with a nod and “Thank you, what would I do without you”.

go on to say:

– Every time we were worried about what to feed our children and how we would pay the rent. But at some point we started asking ourselves: How could they do this to us? And what can we do to change that?

The union spoke with lawyers and asked for documents. It turns out that the municipal law was clear: general cleaning may not be outsourced, but must be handled by employees who work for the municipality.

In 2015, they filed a lawsuit against the municipality of Lima, signed by 570 street cleaners led by Isabel Cortez.

– Many said we were crazy. They said the court would never rule against the municipality even if we were right.

“You saw me as a woman of steel”

There were rumors that all 570 of them would go to jail if they lost the case.

My peers saw me as a woman of steel and showed no outward fear. I said that in prison we get free food and a place. But inside I was thinking of my children. I will be allowed to leave them with my parents, but they live outside Lima, so it will be difficult for us to meet them.

The municipality won first place. The union resumed.

– I had nightmares every night. During the day I worked and then sat in meetings, I analyzed the reasons for the ruling and provided more arguments and evidence. Once we got this far, we couldn’t go back. Who will do? when?

Isabel Cortez and her colleagues won the Supreme Court in 2018. Then absolutely nothing happened. The municipality promised, negotiated and stalled. They were said to have been tied to the cleaning company until the end of the contract.

In April 2021, Isabel Cortez was elected to Congress for the left-wing JP party after running for a second time.

– Only a few years ago, the union used to say that we should stay away from partisan politics because it is dirty. It was a struggle for a guild. It was completely wrong. We must get to the root of the grievances that mean the violation of our rights with impunity.

Chairman of the working committee

She became chair of Parliament’s Labor Committee, and in July 2021 Congress voted through an amendment she proposed to fill loopholes in the law banning the outsourcing of municipal sanitation.

Many of its legislative proposals in the field of labor law concern matters that are clear from a Swedish perspective, such as the right to unionize and strike without penalizing the employer.

But the suggestions in Peru are drastic, and the mere presence of Isabel Cortez in Congress provokes it.

At first, she thought she was imagining the needle-prick stare of her classmates. During the discussion about the Transportation Ban Act, one of the members explained to her that the law meant that no one would dare to invest.

– He said that it is easy to be bold when you are ignorant and that it is rude to speak of things I do not understand. I answered by reading the rules of order for Congress, which state that personal attacks are prohibited. Isabel Cortez said he apologized and said it was a joke, with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

Sometimes I get utterly frustrated when I understand how our political opponents view us as workers: as burdens, as robots they can throw in the trash when we crash. They don’t see us as people.

No work yet

A year after the law was passed, the municipality of Lima has yet to hire a single cleaner.

After the fine in March, the municipality promised to gradually transfer 800 workers from the construction company to the municipality.

But in a new filing, the municipality claims it only applies to the remaining 296 who signed the original lawsuit in 2015. As long as the process continues, nothing will happen.

Outside the city hall a couple of blocks from the conference, a small frozen group standing in orange reflective jackets from Sitopur, Isabel Cortez department, echoed timidly: “Our rights are now!” and “We are no longer afraid!”. They take turns every day since January.

– It is inappropriate that we have to beg and ask the municipality to follow the law and I have nothing else to do but stand here. But Isabel showed that it was worth fighting for, and that change is possible, says Elena Veronica Kobe Morales.

She is one of four cleaners in Situpur who ran in the municipal elections in October this year.

“Can’t go back now”

On her desk in her office, Isabel Cortez looks sad as she thinks of her former co-workers.

She’s visited several municipalities to try to get them to comply with the law, she said, and received an answer that they don’t have room in the budget.

So it is now working with the Ministry of Finance to get funds earmarked for real employment and is preparing a bill on the same topic.

– No matter how helpless and damned I feel, I can’t back out now. You have inspired so many people, and I can’t let them down. I didn’t go this far to give up.