Reproducing the Global Factory
Political Economy of Reproductive Labour in London and New York

Theoretical analysis of the uniquely interesting position both politically and epistemologically held by waged / unwaged reproductive workers in the context of a general reproductive labour regime emerging in New York and London

Workers and worker organisations offer reflections on the specificities of neo-liberal reproductive work – LABOUR CONTENT // POLITICAL CONTENT
Privatised, undervalued, gendered and racialised

The home – requires a definition – as the site of production of humans, Factory of the selves, relational labour, concrete social divisions of home based work / visible & invisible
As the principle site of reproduction
As a space / As a workplace
Class composition of workers / subject in the home
The housewife – a historical product of social engineering
How to locate / discuss the home now? Don’t want to focus on the middle class only. The home as a site of consumption – of commodities and of labour

Official counting / govt reports / stats
% of women working outside the home
where are they working
falling birth rate cf. migration
age of marriage % of marriage % of divorce rate
% of waged reproductive workers in the home – estimates only

Childcare // Nannies
Cleaning & Housework // Domestic Workers
Sex // Sex Workers
Elder Care // Domestic / Care workers

Cleaning: housework, migration has meant more cheap labour available, always a job for working class women – cleaning other people’s homes. Refusal of women to continue to do this work. Inability to do it and work full time, standards of cleaning

Childcare: affects all working women with children, maternity leave, school as 12 years of free childcare, free childcare in the UK for 3 and 4 year olds, nannies, au pairs, childcare centres, childminders, relatives

Eldercare:

Necessity of both child and elder care for working women

Analysis of the technical and social arrangements of production in the home.
What is produced in the home?

What has happened historically to the home? What have been the changes? Why have these changes occurred? Is it possible to locate stable configurations of the home and the production processes that take place within it. If we investigate the effects of neo-liberalism (from the 1970’s) onwards and place the changes within an economic and political framework of crisis – crisis of capital and crisis of gender – women’s refusal to continue to perform unpaid labour, the demands of the women’s movement –

Genealogy of the home 20th century – 21st century
WW1
Interwar period
WW2
Post WW2 reconstruction 50-60’s
70’s – 80’s
90- 21st C

what do we need to map in order to understand the changes to the home in these periods
— women’s participation in the labour market outside the home
— feminist / anti-colonial struggles
— geographical movements – to the suburbs
— migration patterns
— decline of manufacturing / growth of service industry
— feminisation of the labour market
— capital / finance capital

historical questions

– formation of the working class / of the poor
the centrality of the home (texts: London hanged, Making of the English Working Class, Labour Lost)

Midnight notes: the revolts of feminism – leads to the development of the service industry
Looking at this industry – the service industry (what would Marx say about this commodification of the reproductive labour) is it productive for capital / or just reproductive for the working class? Does it produce profit for the ruling class?

What role has the reconfiguration of the home and the labour and production taking place within it played in the increasing inequity and redistribution of wealth in the 21st C?

To map the home now – is to map a neo-liberal home. What work is now done in the home? What work is now done outside? Under what conditions? And by who?
What is neo-liberalism. What do we mean by the neo-liberal home?
From the 70’s onwards – consumption lead growth. Wages – shift to debt
Are we now seeing a contraction of the service industry?

Compare the USA / UK
A story of slavery, colonialism and post colonialism.
What role did slavery / colonialism play in constructing the home and work within it
Gendered work – but also racialised work
Home based work in the USA – slavery, slave work, black women’s work, immigrants work
Historically the impact of colonialism on the home, role of decolonisation and anti-colonial struggles, civil rights movement, black rights movement / women’s movement
Re-colonisation through capitalist globalisation / migration
Home countries and global remittances

What relationship does the home have now to previous demands (from social movements – civil rights, feminists, migrants) and struggles
What struggles and resistances are emerging now / exist now in the home
What are the dynamics of the conflicts in the home
Consequences of demands / struggle – gains at what cost?
Can we politically evaluate previous demands

Fragmentation of the home
– what is transforming the home now?
– Struggle of the subjects – as workers and non-paid labourers
– Demands of the market / capital
– Changes to work outside the home
– Migration patterns – as autonomous movement?

Waged work in the home
– re/emergence of waged work in the home
– intimate labours conference in USA 2007?
– how common is it?
– If we focus on domestic, care and sex work
– Rational for limiting the scope to these – traditional role of the housewife
– Not to forget the previous transformations of reproductive labour that has moved outside of the home – clothes, textiles, food
– What is left is bounded by location – the question of sex?
– Unique location of work in the home
o Isolated, privatised, devalued
– similarities of workers situation and demands in relation to violence, abuse, exploitation to that of previous feminist discourse on the location of women in the home
o previously men were the focus, patriarchy, limit of collective organising, individualised, making dumb, lacking in opportunity
o now the employers are overwhelmingly women
o politics of visibility
o doing the work that makes all other work possible

What was the narrative of 2nd wave feminism?
– evaluate the gains that have been proclaimed. Who won the discourse war? Liberal feminism
– what would a contemporary analysis from a materialist feminist perspective look like
– we now have state feminism, institutionalised gender equality
– how do the majority of women arrange their reproductive labour while working
– if 70% of women work – who looks after the children, cleans the house,
– necessity of dual income households
– double shift / work inside and outside the home
– is the answer just that men should do more housework?

And what of Marx?
– waged work, Adam Smith and domestic work. Not productive labour
– the debate about productive / non-productive
– following marx – but incorporating feminist contributions to the debate
– what happens if we conceptualise work in the home as labour, and as productive labour
– certainly the home is a site of reproduction of capitalist social relations –
– relation to the wage

A question of methods
– action research
– workers inquiry / militant research [precarious la dervia text from Maria?]
– interviews with feminists from the 70’s as history
o in depth interviews with five key feminists from 70’s / 80’s era
– gumtree ad for nannies, domestics and cleaners
– pay for interviews and travel
– sex worker organisation – who do they see the work that they do? Is sex care?
– Domestic Workers United in New York – bill of rights, legislation
– Interviews with families
o At home with a working family in London / New York
o She / he works – have children
o As employers
o The nanny / childcare arrangements / au pair
• Where does she live
• Her visa / age / status
• Her children?
o Domestic worker / cleaner
• PhD students with cleaners??
• What work are they expected to do
• Paid by time?
o Elder Care
• Taking care of who?
• What other options are there for healthcare for the elderly
o How do people arrange care services in their home – currently
• How would they like to have this happen in relation to staying at home / working / sharing with their partner