About Eden
by Nita Mocanu

Starting with the project Made in Italy, a collaboration between Candida Tv (a group of video activists from Rome, Italy) and the group I am part of, D Media, from Cluj (association for alternative media), we started the discussions about the relocation of Italian companies in the Eastern Europe and about how this situation affects the life of women.

“The reality of foreign investment was very different from the initial promise: labour rules were not respected, working conditions were poor, the unions were absent, and many companies delocalized further east when wages began to increase, leaving the workers without a job from one day to the next. Many people left to work abroad rather than compete for jobs paying 70 euro per month at Italian firms in Romania. Italy has become the leading destination for Romanian migrants, with some 2 million workers, mostly clandestine. We thought it was important to highlight this connection because public discourse in Romania has uncritically celebrated foreign investment as a panacea that would save the nation. This is even truer now, in the midst of a wave of EU euphoria and following the rise to power of a newly elected neo-liberal government that has reformed the tax structure and labour code in order to attract more foreign capital.” Memoirs of a Video Activist by Joanne Richardson
“Out of 11000 Italian companies in Romania (13% of all foreign companies, employing around 700000 people) the largest concentration is about 4000 in Bucharest area and 1000 in Arad-Timisoara area. (...) Before visa restrictions were lifted in 2002, businesses in Veneto lobbied for eliminating visa restrictions for Romanian migration in order to facilitate a selective recruitment and training of Romanian migrants in their plants. (...) In 2001 Veneto Region signed an Agreement Protocol for recruitment and training of circular migrants in Italy who would then return to work in Italian companies in Timis district. Unindustria Treviso organized its annual conference in Timisoara in February 2001 with Italian and Romanian government ministries asking public support for the improvement of infrastructure, funding for setting up of technologic and industrial parks in Timisoara and a reduction of red tape on trade. The Conference showed the willingness of Italian enterprise to become directly involved in Romanian politics, and in moulding a special territorial partnership between Veneto and Arad-Timisoara regions.“ Joanne Richardson

In the frame of this project I have realized a short documentary video called Eden about women that work in Italian companies from Arad, a small town in the western Romania, my hometown. I wanted to find out about their opinions about the work in these companies and about their personal experiences connected to these companies.

Oficially, in Romania, women have the same opportunities as men but, actually, the work of women is still less paid than the work of men.
“The Romanian context shows that, in the field of work, women suffer a series of discriminations. This is due to the fact that there are economical domains in which women are the majority and domains in which men are the majority. This leads to a segregation of professions, and we can observe that the feminine ones are, in general, less paid. “ANES [1]

“For instance: the medium gross wages in the financial field is of 22.183.597 lei for men and of 15.750.276 lei for women; in medical field medium gross wages realized by men is of 6.988.944 lei compared to 5.939.880 lei realized by women.”
The Black book of the equality of chances between women and men by Ioana Bozga, Laura Grünberg (coord.), Theodora-Eliza Vacarescu [2]

Starting with the industrialization from the end of the XX century in Romania, women entered the public sphere and the labour market. The first jobs women had were, in general, those refused by men, because they were poorly paid. At the beginning of the XX century women were a frail category, exposed to exploitation, because they didn’t have the right education in order to have certain jobs and because of the prejudice that they only can accomplish inferior labour.

“For the women workers with maximum payment of 1.75 lei, the unpredicted expenditures are unrealisable necessities that to even dream about is not permitted, and for the salaries of one franc per day, the absolute stringent necessities are an unaffordable luxury! But what about when these women have an old mother or a child to nurture and to care for? What about when they have a whole family to care for? Answer us…isn’t this the frozen limit of the awful misery!!! Yes, for the shame or shamelessness of the so called civilized society we are living in, the place for the woman worker, the rights she is given, the justice ought to her is misery, the supreme misery that leads her to the street or to the brothel!” Romanian woman magazine, under the direction of Maria Flechtenmacher, in the column “The economical state of the woman”, end of XIX century [3]

With time, the labour domains in which women were involved got a feminine connotation, the domains being less valuated than the ones occupied mostly by men. Women were in general focused towards domains like education, culture, the social field, which in capitalistic terms are not profitable enough, and consequently, less paid.

The law against discrimination, 137/2002 and the one of the equality of chances between women and men, 202/2002 exist only at a formal level. A woman in a discrimination situation doesn’t really know whom to address and what to do.[4] Women don’t know when they are discriminated, they don’t know their rights, they are poorly informed and this is due to the institutions that work with these problems. There is this general opinion that a discrimination situation is just some bad luck that is happening to them and that it is too shameful to do something to change or to stop this situation.

In the summer of 2005, I went to Arad to work on this video documentary. I was interested to find out how the new economical situation of the town is influencing the daily life of women. I was interested in this because I am a woman too and mainly because, in the official rhetoric, usually the aspects from the women’s lives are not taken into consideration.

Because my family is from Arad, I already knew lots of stories connected to Italians and to businesses with Italians, most of these stories containing problems related to discrimination, to discontents related to money and obscure businesses, etc. First, I tried to make some contacts, I made a few phone calls, trying to find persons for me to interview. I got a lot of refusals. Finally, I made five interviews; two of the persons I interviewed didn’t want to be filmed and all of them decided that they don’t want to appear in the video with their full name. The women didn’t want to have problems at their working place or in the case of a future employment.

An accountant tells me about her personal experience connected to her working relationship with Italians, relationship that degraded in time, especially after the year 2000, when, she states, a new series of investors came to Arad in order to start small businesses, especially pubs; another accountant tells about the way she was addressed at her working place, especially when she was claiming her rights: she was reproached that the Romanians are still not worth to be well treated, to be treated with respect because we are new in the world; a girl that works in the sewing department talks about the stress at her working place, about the verbal violence of her employers, about the uncertain salary which is small and directly connected to the production and the sales; another girl is telling about how she feels better working in an Italian company than in the education system where she was also less paid, but she knows nothing about the company she is working in; another woman tells about the working regulations that are taken for granted in the company, but only a few of the employees can actually accomplish them. From the local press I find an article in Adevarul de Arad newspaper from 18.08.2005, article titled “Letter from Italy”, where a woman who emigrated to Italy in order to find a safer and better paid job (that she is not managing to find in Italy, either) talks about the ways Romanians are seen outside the country. All these stories are proofs for the discrimination, exploitation and harassment of women at their working places.

The town of Arad, the context where I realized these interviews, looks like an ocupied town, the public space is taken over by firms with Italian names, on the streets you can hear these Italians talking, most of them men in their forties, come here for business. There are approximately 3000 Italians in the area of Arad. There is a male majority of Italian employers comparing with the female majority of their employees; I deduced this from the discussions.

Once the delirium of the ‘90s passed, the blind happiness of the liberty was awakening to the reality. For the women, the exploitation from the communist times, which went until the most intimate aspects of their lives, transforms now in open harassment, not from the party, central, abstract power, but from anybody who can do it. In this frame, Italians are creating the context now; they came to Arad because they can find here available girls and cheep labour force. One of the women I interviewed compares and gets to the conclusion that Romanian employers and Italian employers are the same. Still, the “Italian” is always the man with money come here for business, possible criminal in his country, a man who develops here the prostitution market, who is looking for cheep labourers and for amusement.

“I left Romania full of hopes for the great travel to find the lost Eden, namely a decent, stable and well paid job. Of course, between the borders of the country this goal is very difficult to reach. And do you know why? It is because of us, Romanians, who are emigrating, looking for a better life.” Adevarul de Arad – “Letter from Italy”18.08.2005

Getting back to the video, I can’t stop noticing some kind of embarrassment of women to talk about their working place. Besides the aspects connected to sexual harassment, the verbal and psychological violence, another reason for their embarrassment is also the fact that they are poorly paid.
In order to talk about life, it is often used the logic of labour, the dignity of labour and the power that money gives you as a reward for your work. In the video it is said “The work gives our life a purpose”. And this is true. Unfortunately, labour is not giving our life the sense that we would want to, but a sense connected to its own logic. Hence, to work for little money means a disregard of your life and being. The shame of having a bad paid job is smaller than the shame of not having a job at all. A person that is not working nowadays is considered a paria, a lazy person that doesn’t deserve to eat. [5] What I see around me is a raising consideration for, and consequently a raising dignity, of persons connected to the title they get at their jobs. For instance, it is not the same to be a secretary or a manager, and especially it’s not the same to be manager or working woman or cleaning lady. If you are a poor woman you can be regarded as a prostitute, if not obliged to go in this direction. A single mother in Romania represents the image of poverty and social marginalisation. The emigrants in Italy are perceived as prostitutes, according to an interview taken in the frame of Made in Italy project. Also, working-women, women from the lower class and their experiences tend to become invisible and not interesting for the official discourse propagated through the mass media. The housewives are inexistent, especially from the point of view of the state and the mass media, because of their basic condition where their work cannot have money value, only a sentimental value. And we are getting back to the logic of labour.

“The one who is completely destitute of material goods, whatever these goods would be, in which his social status would be crystallized, doesn’t exist. A Spanish song was telling in wonderfully true words: “If someone wants to make oneself invisible, the safest way to accomplish that is to become poor”. Simone Weil – The forms of the implicit love for God [6]

The women from the Eden documentary are pretending not to complain while they talk about their problems. The norm regarding the order of labour being the man, the problems of women are not important, they are generally qualified as being just personal complains of women. On the other hand, there are some already established enemies of the public welfare: one of them is the corrupted state, another are the foreign investors, especially the businessmen of Mafioso style or the blackmailers. The important things are those that are happening at a political level, what is happening in our private lives, at our working place or in the home sphere is not interesting. I can’t stop playing with these ways to see the world, important=visible=dignified=with money, not important=invisible=poor=unworthy. At the unionist manifestations from the spring of 2006 it was constantly claimed that people want better salaries, salaries like in Europe. “The terrible poverty that workers, teachers, medical doctors, all the categories of employees are subjected to, and mainly the retired people, because of the level of salaries and pensions, make us loose our dignity”. [7]

Arad is, somehow, an Eden for the foreigners. Romania can be compared, in these terms, with another Eden, Africa. Africa is another territory for the foreign exploitation.

“I went to a few job interviews, but although I am speaking Italian fluently (beside other foreign languages), in the moment I was saying that I am Romanian a series of things were reproached to me, namely: “Romanians are the most unreliable nation, I have also other non Italian employees, I told everyone what are the rules in the company and everybody respects them, except Romanians. The Romanians are ungrateful people; they are not trustworthy. I am sorry I started a company in Romania, I would have been better of in Africa.” Adevarul de Arad – “Letter from Italy” 18.08.2005

The problem of money: in Eden people talk less about the lack of money than about the unfairness in the ways women are treated. But they seem powerless in front of such treatments.

There is still a fear to expose yourself as a woman and to be laughed at because of the problems you encounter and especially a fear to raise at the public level the problems that are considered personal. In this frame, labour and its all-encompassing logics has the tendency to be the pattern by which people are valued, and their dignity and independence are directly depending on this logic. The true Eden is that of the stable and well paid jobs, not that of the circular, tedious time… In the way of seeing labour there is a contradiction, on the one hand there exists that work which is worth of you that is still connected to the mentality inveterate since the communist times, and on the other hand there exists the labour necessary for realizing the profit. In front of the profit, the labour cannot be dignifying anymore, the labour is just necessary, with the condition that it becomes more and more “volunteered”, paid at the abstract level of titles and positions. Work is not about satisfying the human needs anymore. “(...) whoever owns the least has the fewest employees on the payroll and produces the most powerful images, as opposed to products, wins the race.” [8] I am thinking at the raised ego of those who make money “from nothing”, of those who make business in order to obtain more money; it is a power relationship, a continuous conflict of interests that enter deeper and deeper our way of being and our way of living together.

This is related to public life. At an abstract level, the profit is obtained from branding and logo. The profit doesn’t take persons into consideration, just itself and its own multiplication. For women, the employer is always a disinterested foreigner. Being caught between the two types of labour, the labour in their homes and the job they have for money, the work in the home is not considered work but private life, a way of living dedicated to the people close to them, to the loved ones; the labour that you do for money is for the ones who go beyond the private sphere, is for the others. [9] Actually, the capitalist individualism tends to be about a life lived between strangers that are living at a more and more abstract level of the struggle for profit.

I pursued the clothes made in the Arad area, clothes made for a salary that you get according to the norm that you accomplish, I watched them displayed in luxury shops from the West, in Vienna, Stuttgart, Budapest. The value of the salary that each of the women working in those companies are getting is the same as the price of one of the clothes from those shops.

I have never been employed. I feel that in every move I make. It seems that nothing has sense. Everything is pointless. I try to believe that this is so due to the logic of paid labour, raised to the level of social rule, natural state of the society. This is the reason why I wanted to speak here about this detail from the Eden documentary, about the personal dignity related to labour.

“After the experience, traumatizing for me, of working for three years in the education system, working in a nice environment, having a relaxing activity (I was painting oil on canvas reproductions after photos and paintings), having nice colleagues and a decent salary were a welcomed change; I wasn’t thinking at all about the less pleasant aspects of my work. I was content. But after we were made to resign and then we were hired back again, the situation changed. When we were hired again, they offered us a much smaller salary, of 3 800 000 lei per month (it wasn’t by far a “decent” salary anymore), with the promise that shortly they will give us substantial bonuses according to the quantity and the quality of our labour, on the base of evaluations made by an expert in the field. (…)These were a few of the criteria we were evaluated upon: how well we are collaborating with the bosses (how fawning and fake we were able to be), the enthusiasm at work (putting on a big smile while working, maybe… I couldn’t figure out what they really wanted me to do about that), the cleanness at the working place (keeping an environment as STERILE as possible, even if we were painting and we had to use paint and implicitly to make a bit of mess), the cooperation with colleagues (at this point I was severely sanctioned because I help my colleagues only when they are asking for my help!? and also because I seemed to be more lonely and introvert), the capacity to work in other departments (the most of us were considered some incapable persons, because we didn’t have the initiative to show the bosses some “extracurricular” abilities). And also, our working conditions were considerably getting worse (we were moved in a former can factory, somewhere at the periphery of the town, where we were working in the dust and in the noise produced by the carpenter machines that were working unceasingly in the same hall as us), without abiding the regulations of interior order, where it was stated that we have to be given a material or of other nature compensation if our working conditions are getting worse.
It would take too long to describe also the other reasons that determined me to resign from this company, So I stop here. I hope to manage on my own from now on, because I wish I will never be constrained to work for someone, whether an Italian employer, or the Romanian state, given the conditions that are offered to us.” Oana, Arad

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1. http://www.anes.ro/documentecheie/strategia.htm
2. Study realised in October 2003
3. Quote from the feminist studies magazine Analize – issue number 10 ”Women and their labours” from the article „Condition of the women’s labour” by Stefania Mihailescu
4. The black book of the equalities of chances between women and men in Romania by Ioana Bozga, Laura Grünberg (coord.), Theodora-Eliza Vacarescu, pag.88
5. Gruppe Krisis - Manifesto against labour
6. Simone Weil - Forme de iubire implicitã a lui Dumnezeu, pag. 30, ed. Humanitas 2005
7. “Europe Day, the 9th of Mai and the unionists’ manifestations”
8. Naomi Klein - “NO LOGO” pag. 4, ed. Harper Perennial London 2005
9. The feminist studies magazine Analize- issue number 10 in the article “Revisiting Marx-”the home labours” in the real Romania” by Valentina Marinescu

D Media –
Candida TV –