Women workers?
We don't get a break on the machines. There is nobody as a replacement there.
We have a 20 minute lunchbreak but we don't take it.
We eat on the run or while we're supervising the machines
but we don't take a break. That's always been the case.
I started working here 5 years ago.
Before that I was at home. I wasn't doing anything, then
I opened a shop but that didn't work out.
I gave that up and since then I've worked here.
It helps me out.
I work so that I can pay for what I need.
I don't want to impose on my husband.
I want to be independent.
I want to fight for my livelihood.
I can't imagine what it would be like if I didn't work.
For me personally, not for anyone else, for me.
I mean... how should I say it?
That's not pride. No one is proud to be in the factory!
But to be independent. But that's not all.
I don't know how I should put it, how I can say it.
For self-respect! To sustain myself by my own means.
To not be dependent on anyone.
I changed jobs, the wages here are better.
But it's exhausting and without prospects.
No prospects, exhausting and hard.
In another, more varied job I would learn more.
Every day consists only of work, work, work here.
Works starts at midnight, that is very, very exhausting.
I'm often tired. But I still have to get up.
I have no free time. Producing stockings is boring.
We work 6 days a week.
We don't have a break to eat,
but we can eat, that isn't forbidden.
Nobody stops us drinking water, eating,
or going to the toilet. We don't have any problems there.
A job, is that important?
Very important.
For physical stamina, and also for the money...
to have a home that you can leave and come back to.
For me, life is impossible without a job.
Work. Why? For who?
Profession and factory, why? And tomorrow?
No choice. Worries, hopes, stress, regrets, denial.
Without always knowing it.
Sometimes they resemble each other, a little or a lot.
Women workers from all countries...
A film from the artistic collective, Images-en-transit
www.images-en-transit.org
Thanks to the factory workers
in France, Romania, China, Burkino Faso and Mali.
Thanks for their support...
Subtitles: Kiran Dhami for labournet.tv