Amber Craft Collectives

The Amber Workers Co-operative in Zapatista Autonomous Municipality '16 de Febrero'

In February 2007 we met with members of the Amber Workers Co-operative of '16 de Febrero', who told us of their work and the problems they were trying to overcome.

These artisans make beautiful amber jewellery, including necklaces, bracelets, and ear-rings. They also sell polished pieces of amber.

There were 21 members of the society present to meet us, 8 or 9 of them women. In total the group has 55 members, who belong to 8 local village-based groups.

Here we reproduce their story:

"Our Society was formed 2 years ago, more or less. There used to be more members, but some left for a variety of reasons, ie economic problems, other commitments and so on. Many didn't have enough initial capital to invest, to buy the machines, materials etc. The groups are working permanently but they don't have their own buildings.

The 8 groups don't get enough work, and so are unable to buy a sufficient amount of amber. Most of the groups lack the tools to work the amber, for example to drill holes, polish the amber, we don't have the pliers or wire cutters we need, so we have to find other ways of doing the work and can't advance or develop as we would like. It would be a lot quicker and easier with the proper machines, at present it is costing us a lot of work and time. The problem is that the machines are expensive to buy.

Another problem is buying the amber, which only comes from other parts of the municipality, so we are not able to mine it ourselves but have to buy it, the prices are rising and it is already pretty expensive for us.

The solidarity work you do is very important for us, it is the only road to follow. There are serious problems with finding a market for our work, there is no way to show or sell it. Apart from the "Dignity for Women" shops in Oventik and San Cristobal and the Solidarity Groups in Scotland, there are no economic possibilities for going out and promoting our work, the lack of a market is our biggest problem. We live in an isolated situation. We want to get our products out more widely, at present we only have local and regional outlets.

We also have to buy silver etc to do quality work. And everything requires a lot of time. There are difficulties with getting good quality materials… (The artisans explained that they had to be careful when buying materials from unscrupulous suppliers, to make sure they were not cheated.) We want to do good quality work, but it's difficult without quality materials. Little by little we are trying to solve the problems.

In '16 de Febrero' we make our jewellery with pure amber, but there are problems with competition from other amber workers, who sell what appears to be amber, but is really plastic, which they can offer for a lot cheaper. A lot of the supposed amber sold in San Cristobal is actually fake."

How is the co-operative organised?

Each community group has a representative which goes to general meetings. In each group the members meet up to work together in one place. Everyone teaches and helps each other. The purchase of the machines etc is shared, each group has one or two small machines, and then everyone can use them.

Please get in touch with us at edinchiapas@yahoo.co.uk to find out more about the amber jewellery we have for sale, plus see our merchandise page.

We also spoke to zapatistas who worked in the amber mines:

Amber Mines

"We work in the amber mines, it's very heavy work. We are trying to form an amber miners' collective, but so far we haven't been able to find a suitable mine, which is big enough.

We sell the raw amber, but we get paid very little for it. We have to sell to the amber dealers, the middlemen (coyotes), in Simojovel.

We need better tools, we need small machines which would help in the mining work. It is dangerous work, sometimes there are accidents. The problem is that you are normally working by yourself, so there if there is an accident there is no-one to assist you."

Women's Handicraft Collectives

Women's handicrafts co-operative zapatista autonomous municipality '16 de Febrero'

The women in The Highlands of Chiapas are famous for their skill in embroidery and handicrafts. In '16 de Febrero', as in other zapatista autonomous municipalities, the women have formed themselves into a co-operative.

Twenty three women from 3 different communities were present to tell us about the work of the Women's Co-operative for Artesania, at a meeting in February 2007. The Collective involves 122 women from 11 villages in '16 de Febrero'.

"Thank you for all your work selling our products. Now that we're working in a collective it is much better than individually.

"The Co-operative works well. It helps by enabling us to sell our artesania (handicrafts)."

"But there are problems. Even if the artesania is sold at a better price, the money that actually reaches the women is less than the selling price, and then we need to buy more materials."

"If sales are low then it's difficult to buy the cloth and other things we need, also because of the economic situation that we find ourselves in, in Co-operative."

"The Co-operative helps quite a lot, if you take work as an individual to places like Simojovel (the nearest big town), you don't get a good price."

"I can remember going to Simojovel and they would refuse to pay the price I needed - they would impose their price. With the Co-operative it is better, we still get little but as a Collective we get more than individually."

"I am happy even if I am not really sure what to say. We are in struggle to be able to work. It is a sacrifice to do the work, it costs time and suffering. but now it is different, it is good in the Co-operative."

"Normally we get paid a bad price for our work. It can be discouraging, but with the Co-operative we are encouraged to keep going forward. At times it is difficult but we go on with the struggle."

"We find it difficult to explain. We are not used to meetings, to speaking in front of other people."

The Organisation of the Co-operative

It is part of the Women for Dignity Co-operative who have a shop at Oventik. Four women from the '16 de Febrero' Co-operative take it in turns to go to Oventik and work there for 8 days in the shop.

The Co-operative has meetings every so often. A representative comes from each group, in each community. They bring and take back information, eg on what progress there has been with the Co-operative, etc..

How the Women Work

"We work every day, but not all the time, because we also have a lot of other work, our main work, to do. We have to make the tortillas, look after the children, make food for the family. We usually work at the artesania for between 2 and 4 hours per day.

We work together in each community in a specific place all together. We don't have a special building set aside for this work, in Berlin for example the women work under a shelter where the firewood is stored, in another community they work in one woman's house.

Working this way helps us quite a lot because we can help each other in how to do the work. If one woman knows one kind of work but another knows another work, then we can help and support each other. For example if one of us knows how to make a star on the bags, then they can show the rest, we can help each other."

Women Situation

Before there was oppression, we didn't know how to explain our needs, women grew up without studying. We didn't have education, we didn't have learning, we were forgotten and ignored.

The birth of collectivism has helped a lot, it has enabled us to work and to sell our products.

Before when we weren't organised, it was very difficult to sell our products, we didn't know where to go to sell the products. Now it's different from before. Because of the collective we can sell our work.

"There's been a big change, even though before we did work, we didn't know where to sell our products. The government left women in oblivion, they denied women any rights. Through struggle this has changed, now we can work, we can sell our work in other places.

The government made false promises that it would help women sell our artesania, our handicrafts, but it didn't keep these promises. The government didn't give any recognition to women's artesania.

(NOTE In our visit to '16 de Febrero', we could observe that more changes were needed till women achieved equality - from the gender imbalance in holding positions of responsibility, to the simple fact of many more boys than girls wearing shoes in some areas. But we could also see the progress made, in that for example there are now women on the autonomous council, and in all the meetings in the villages, women attended and spoke out about their situation.)

Education

"Before, girls didn't have the right to go to school. This was mainly because of the landowners. before, this area was all fincas (big estates) and ranches. We were in the hands of the estate owners, we had to work for the boss.

Not only the girls, but also the boys were not able to go to school. Even if you were only 7 or 8 years old, you had to start to work. This was before we started the land occupations in the 1980's. But even then the women couldn't go to school, there was still an inequality due to gender. Few women participated in education, because of how we were badly treated. This still continues.

Now things are a bit better, due to our work. We now have some hope for the future through our hope that you will seek some more markets for our artesania. We hope that this will not be your last visit, we hope to have more visits from you."