There are many things to admire about Oaxaca. One is the people's work ethic. They work hard and they work long hours. Over the years I have posted lots of shots of people at work here. So much of work here is "grunt" work, hard labor with no machines. I have watched guys carry wet sand delivered out on the street and then carried in using five gallon buckets, bucket after bucket. I have watched women grinding corn with metates. Campesinos, clearing fields by hand, using oxen to plow the furrows. From restoration, construction, right down to sweeping the streets or collecting the trash, most of it is done by hand. I have learned to work that way myself. It is just normal life here.
I guess that is why I react when I hear the negative stereotypes of workers from Mexico. If people only really knew.
Well, the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released as study that it quite interesting.
Mexicans work longer days than anyone else in OECD countries, devoting 10 hours to paid and unpaid work, such as cleaning or cooking at home. Belgians work the least, at 7 hours, compared with an OECD average of 8 hours a day.
1 comment:
I agree. The amount of manula labor that goes on in Mexico is staggering.
I have seen Mexican men hauling out sand and stone debris in wheelbarrows that they dump on the sidewalk, then other men shovel the debris into a dump truck. This goes on until the dump truck is filled.
Their shifts can be the stores' hours, such as 8 am to 8 pm.
They usually work six days a week.
We should learn from them.
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