Estela Nava has been a cleaning employee for 40 decades. In that time, she’s gone from doing work in the Congress Hotel to cleaning universities to performing in people’s households. Nava states through her career she has been underpaid, yelled at and disrespected.
Fed up with the abuse she’s endured, Nava is launching a cleansing staff cooperative on the Southeast Aspect termed Mujeres Brillantes Cleansing Co-op.
Owned by Nava and two other immigrant women, Esmeralda Gutierrez and Mairim Fernandez, the cooperative was declared on Monday at Town Corridor with the help of Cook County Commissioner Alma Anaya and Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza (10th).
The cooperative, the initial of its variety on the Southeast Aspect, has been in the functions for a few many years with assistance from the city of Chicago and the United Workers’ Center.
Forming a cooperative is various from a normal company mainly because the personnel are also in demand of generating all decisions relating to shell out, operating ailments and negotiations with the destinations that use them for their solutions.
Sadlowski Garza mentioned the announcement was “long overdue” simply because cleaning workers are generally exploited by larger organizations that employ them.
“This is genuinely significant since these are personnel who’ve usually been in the history, employees that have been exploited, personnel that have been aspect of wage theft, and now we’re bringing these personnel to the forefront,” she stated. “And they’re having on and forming their personal business with assistance from the metropolis of Chicago.”
The 3 co-homeowners had been skilled above the past several many years to individual their possess small business.
“We’re not heading to put up with any a lot more abuse,” Nava said, tearing up. “We’ll be cost-free to do our best.”
Sadlowski Garza said the Southeast Facet is a “worker-oriented” spot.
“People-run actions have always occur out of the 10th Ward,” she stated. “We’re empowering our persons to run their own company and make their personal choices.”
This is the second cooperative released on the Southeast Facet. The to start with was a group of gals with a salsa business enterprise.
“We’re heading to make them regard the guarantees they make in conditions of pay out and the function,” Nava stated. “I know I’m previous, but you are hardly ever much too previous to do what you want to do.”