Unionizing Otherwise – Affective Care and Community Empowerment as Labor Organizing Strategies of Migrant Feminist Unions in Spain

Migrant workers in Spain have been increasingly framing their labor organizing as a feminist struggle. This paper examines how feminist unionizing contributes to existing labor organizing strategies using the example of migrant workers in Barcelona. We question how the feminist ethos reflects on labor organizing. What moral principles guide the approach and in what ways do they intersect with broader political norms in social justice movements? How do emotions factor in labor unionizing strategies? To answer these questions, we will compare two union case studies from Barcelona, Spain. For example, an organizing strategy employed by the unions, known as mimopolítica or the politics of pampering, aims to achieve the workers’ socio-emotional emancipation. This is performed by strategically linking their contextual knowledge and personal experiences with practices that promote emotional empowerment. Yet, we aim to question if mimopolitics contributes to a redefinition of power dynamics or reproduces established political norms. We are also interested in exploring how do workers’ identities, particularly those tied to gender and migrant status, shape their moral stance within the labor movement? On a pan-Hispanic level, affective organizing has been a prolific tool for the Association of Argentinian sex workers to address the isolation and stigma experienced in precarized, feminized work. Likewise, feminist scholars have long advocated that unionizing should not end with economic necessities, but also concentrate on the workers’ psychological and relational needs. We believe that mimopolitics is both a practical and conceptual creation, a communal space for transformative relationships, and a labor feminist “union of one’s own”. In this space, grieving exploitation and joyful militancy come together. Mimopolitics then embodies an emotional web of transactions of care that allows wasted bodies to rest and to recharge. In that way, it epitomizes the much-needed care for care workers. In conclusion, we assert that feminism, through implementing strategies of emotional empowerment, presents itself as a sustainable groundwork for future labor activism.