The Origin of the VidaViva Network
The VidaViva network was founded in Brazil in 2002 by Tie Global,
an international network of trade union acitivists in different countries of the world,
such as Brazil, Mexico, USA, Germany,
Turkey, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, South Africa, Mosambique, and Senegal.
Activities of Tie Global adress workers in the formal and the informal sector.
They aim at strengthening an international sense of solidarity between workers
and their organizations in different parts of the world.
Another motivation is the exchange of experiences and information
between workers, trade union activists, women's groups and human rights organizations.
Therefore, Tie Global organizes conferences, develops projects around specific issues,
educational seminars, and exchange visits
on a local, regional, and international level.
In Brazil the VidaViva network consists of trade unions from different sectors:
food, chemical, metal, rural workers, data processing,
banking, civil servants and others.
One of the main subjects within the network is workers' health,
which is affected by poor working conditions.
Problems and Necessities
Health is not seen as a mobilizing issue by unions
who put all their weight in salary campaigns.
Unions have difficulties to understand the process which causes occupational illness.
Within the VidaViva network the unions reflect on
the rising level of wokers' accidents and illnesses, both physical and mental,
caused primarily by changes in the working sphere during recent years.
Not all unions provide a structure of education
that enables workers to participate in these debates.
The VidaViva network aims at creating a mechanism to face this process.
CHANGES IN THE WORKING SPHERE
In former times companies and public or private organizations used bare pressure
on workers to make them achieve production targets.
Nowadays new strategies are being used: by delusion, cooptation,
and stimulating competitiveness between workers,
companies try to convince workers that they are partners,
collaborators of management, and do not need unions.
At the same time workforces have been downsized by huge numbers,
while outsourcing and work intensification kept raising the pace.
This created a steady growth of physical and mental illnesses.
LIFE, HEALTH AND WORK
Look, even though my father and sister were doctors,
I had no idea what it would mean to be a doctor.
I had no idea I wanted to be a doctor.
I did it because I was very presumptuous then and it was the most difficult entrance exam.
I lived in Rio and one reason was my family. I wanted to pass the exam, my sister had passed.
It was not like I always wanted to be a doctor, you see?
But I found myself, because I love it!
Normally I wake up at 6 am. Then I wake my husband and my son,
and we have breakfast together.
Then my husband goes to work, I come here, my son goes to school. I only have one child.
On arrival it is very stressful here,
because in the emergency room, after the night shift, there are many things left to us to resolve.
So in the morning you run a lot, even though the emergency room is very crowded all day.
Anything can happen at any hour.
What stresses you out, is this kind of unexpected thing,
and suddenly, because we are a public hospital, we cannot afford to solve it.
And this stresses you out just too much, you know?
If you lose a patient due to lack of resources - that's the worst thing.
I consider this one of the biggest causes of stress people have here.
And it's hard to get over it.
In university they make us believe we are some kind of half-gods.
We seem to be masters of the circumstances, but in reality this is not the case.
It is frustrating when you cannot achieve the goal of saving everybody.
If that doesn't work, it really wears you out – you feel like the worst person in the whole world.
You begin to look for excuses for what has happened.
This is the worst stress a doctor has when he lost a patient.
I try to disconnect when I get back home - that's what I usually do to improve my condition.
Because when you come home very loaded, you return even more stressed, sucked!
You can describe a person as sucked when she returns from the emergency room.
I just had a lot of migraines, and a hypertensive peak in the emergency room caused by stress.
In my age you must begin to stop doing this work.
I get involved so much, I think it's not good for me.
Even looking for alternatives -
I walk, I take care what I eat, I started a therapy,
I'm doing yoga to relax -
but I feel I'm still not doing well.
I think... the satisfaction is to get the job done well in a place with poor conditions.
This is a great pleasure, maybe it's even a little vanity. I think every doctor is vain.
But nevertheless it's all about...
achieving your goals with limited resources. Achieving your goals is a very good thing.
Which one of these triangles represents best the relation between life-health and work?
As you can see, one of the central issues in the VidaViva network
is to develop a process of discussion about health, with the worker as a subject.
We want to focus on health more broadly by stimulating a profound reflection among workers
on changes in the world of work that are affecting their life and their health.
Work – Life – Health
Collective Building Process
This whole process is under permanent development.
Working groups assist in the production of training tools.
The implementation starts with the presentation of the program to union leaders.
The union leaders then choose local trainers who will be trained by popular educators
to enable them to implement the program's tools with the workers.
The next step: the acutal implementation with rank&file workers, is done by the union itself.
The complete process is accompanied and supported by the VidaViva network
who organises regional and national meetings where local trainers
can exchange their experiences with the program's implementation.
The implemenations' results are then used for negotiations with the companies.
Training for Action
Meeting the needs identified by the unions,
training resources have been developed to promote collective spaces for reflection
and help workers to develop concrete actions for intervention at the workplace.
What are the three priorities in your life?
Children's Perspectives
Dad, dad, dad, dad...
dad, dad, dad... "What is it, do not scream! I'm listening to you ... "
Life depends on work. In order to buy food, clothing - you need money. So you have to work.
When she's at home, I like to talk to her about the news of the day, I like to study with her...
The news that I tell her is: what happened at school or just what happens - good or bad.
She listens, she gives advice, she... just does it, and listens to you... she is paying attention.
My mother is a housekeeper.
She works Monday through Saturday.
And my father is confectioner, he works at the bakery.
Oh, he gets home tired, you see?
When he is here, he says: "Give me a little rest."
He rests a bit, then wakes up, and gives us food. In case my mother has not returned,
we go there, we eat, we play a little.
Oh, work on Monday, on Tuesday...
Oh, skip every other day: one day yes, one day no... There would be more time.
That's how I would like it.
My dad has an office inside the house, it's nicely separated...
So why doesn't he stay just with me?
He is going to move the office out of the house, because it's bad.
I would like to travel more.
But when we travel, he takes the computer and works even more.
He gets nervous, wanting everyone to go to sleep soon, because otherwise he might get disturbed...
So he likes it quite, but there are also times when he needs company.
I tell him he shouldn't be so nervous.
When I speak to him, he calms down. But then we end up doing what he wants.
My mother gets home at around six o'clock.
She watches a little TV and then falls asleep, because she's too tired.
She is exhausted and I don't have much chance to talk to her. We don't have much contact.
I would like to be with her more often, I miss her, and besides I don't have anything to do at home...
For some people, being at home is cool. But I don't agree.
Not having anything to do is no fun.
I would like to travel, to celebrate something, for example her birthday or mine...
to talk with her more,
and to spend free time.
On weekends I go to my dad's house. It's the only two days I get to see him.
I play computer there, I play with him, or we go to some park or a mall.
He doesn't do much, he just takes me to the places.
For example, if we go to the park, he just sits on a bench and I play with the toys.
When we return to his house, there aren't many things to do, because there isn't much space.
Then I play computer all day long.
Or we go to the church service, but there is nothing to do there either.
I live with my mother. My father moved to Recife.
Oh, I miss him a lot. Every now and then he calls.
When he is here, we take advantage of that. We only see him five days.
He is only here for five days every two months. Then he goes back.
He slimmed down a lot there...
He leaves for work at four o'clock and returns at eleven.
Therefore, he has only about three hours of rest per day.
The three hours he is at home are for sleeping, you see?
He works in a hotel.
He works a lot there, I don't know...
You have to choose: work or stay home. Heads up or suffering of hunger, you know?
My mother gets home stressed and tired.
When she gets home, she is quarreling and mad at everyone. You can't do anything to satisfy her.
It's because of the persons who call her.
She works as a telephone-operator.
We notice that, she is angry with us and we can't do anything right for her.
Well, if you want to work a lot, you can work. If you don't want it, you don't work.
But I think, you should just work enough for living.
The excess of work causes stress. You forget about the family...
... about the most important things. You are only thinking of work. Work, work, work.
Sometimes I feel lonely without them and their caring...
Oh, she cleans things up all day. When she leaves, she tells us what to do or not.
To lock the door and to do things straight away.
Sometimes she comes back angry, exhausted, and fights with us.
She is angry because of the excausting work and then she is quarreling with us..
She gets back very tired and upset.
I prefer that she works, because she has to buy everything.
When she is at work, there is no fighting at home. When she is home, she is quarreling with us.
She complains about backache, sometimes she has fever, or a headache.
I feel sorry for her, I feel really bad.
I feel as if I was her, as if her feelings were mine. I feel what she feels.
She should work less instead of leaving early in the morning and coming back at night.
She should come back at midday and rest more instead of being in the sun all day.
She only has a short lunch break.
She works in a shed, leaves early and returns late at night.
Then we can't do anything together because the children are already sleeping.
Sometimes she doesn't work on Saturdays, and normally Sunday is her day off.
And then there is time, not enough, but we can talk.
At least on her days off my mom can give comfort, love to her children and encourage us.
She gets home around half past ten or ten.
I'm already sleeping by that time, but I think she works even more...
she washes the clothes, she writes...
I think she goes to bed at midnight or one o'clock.
Well, she should work a little less, to stay a little more with me – the family is important too.
I would like to talk about what I feel and to play, too.
I am very proud.
She works, she struggles to spend time with me, she gives her best to help me.
She really wants to help me with everything.
What would your son/daughter say about your work, your life, and your health?
Choose an option: Earn the same salary working half of your actual working hours
Earn twice the salary working your actual working hours
Kollektive Reflexion
This is the objective of the Audiovisual Interactive Tool (Raio),
a tool designed to promote worker's reflection on issues related to their life,
health, and work, broadening the perspective on health.
By provocation Raio intends to create spaces for collective reflection,
in order to challenge the common sense.
How is your body?
Mapping is a participatory research model adopted by the VidaViva network.
It is designed to identify existing problems in body, work and life.
The research is divided into five phases:
- Body Mapping, where workers identify problems affecting their health
- Workplace Mapping, where workers analyze their workplace in detail
and identify the relation between their illness and their work
- "Our world" Mapping, that allows workers to discuss the effects of work in each one's life
- Prioritization of problems which must be negotiated in order to improve the workplace
- Action plan, where workers collectively define their proposed solutions to the problems raised.
Participatory research helps breaking the silence between the workers
and allows them to build and develop actions in the workplace.
Mapping allows workers to do away with the misconception of illness as an individual problem, and most importantly:
it is up to the workers to examine their workplaces, define the problems related to their health,
and identify their reasons, by establishing the relation between falling ill and work.
STRENGHTENING SHOP FLOOR ORGANIZATION
Another educational instrument developed by the VidaViva network is a health workshop.
It is intended to encourage workers' reflection on the occurrence of workplace accidents
and the role of health and safety commissions,
in order to extend their possibilities to intervene and organize workers.
Using comics, the health workshop deconstructs the argument that workers are to blame for accidents,
and denounces the assumption that illness is an individual matter.
It also shows how companies rather manage accidents than effectively invest
in health and safety.
Furthermore, workers reflect on the need to fight for collective protection in the workplace.
Production targets. Fast pace. Harassment by bosses. Pressure to perform.
Competition among colleagues. Threat of unemployment. Falling ill. Resistance.
These stories are reported by workers in photo exhibitions called "Vivências" (life stories).
The stories unite, excite, and awaken consciousness.
"Life stories" make us realise that work must be (re)thought, and actions collectively developed
if we want to change reality.
The exhibition "life stories" enables us to create a common identity between workers from different sectors,
breaking with the false belief that getting sick at work is an individual issue.
By exchange between different realities, workers' situation becomes public and provides a common basis for protest.
Union Action Forum
The Union Action Forum was created to help unions and workers to achieve changes at work.
Through the Forum, unions can share concrete practices that led to changes in favour of workers.
They can compare workplaces according to certain criteria,
such as work pace, work overload, analysis of a specific workplace, working times, control, etc.
First, a concrete problematic workplace or form of work organization is detected.
The network seeks to identify trade unions with experience
of similar workplaces or work organizations.
Then, the network seeks to organize seminars, and national and international exchanges
to promote an exchange of experiences and possible solutions.
Collective Building within the International Network
The VidaViva network reaches across borders.
Experiences similar to those of Brazil are being developed in countries like
Mozambique, Germany, Mexico and South Africa.
In the future, they will also be developed in other countries where activities of Tie Global exist,
always based on local realities and workers' concrete experiences.
The VivaVida concept of building and action is centered on the the creation of collective spaces,
where workers can valorize, reflect and articulate their knowledge and experiences,
and then develop actions based on the problems raised.
We believe that workers' experiences form the best tool for creating a new consciousness
and building a new form of action.