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1931 Pesillo demands

1. Owners (patrones) must fire any mayordomo (manager), employee, or servant who mistreats the workers, absolutely abolishing the use of garrotes and other punishments;

2. The custom of giving unpaid Indigenous services to servants on the hacienda be abolished; the hacienda can count on two services each month on a rotating basis, provided that the Syndicate creates the rotation list;

3. Each service will be paid three sucres a month;

4. Milkmaids who work from early in the morning will earn twenty centavos every day, and after finishing their milking and cheese-making chores will be free, without obligation to do other jobs;

5. All peons on the hacienda who have a huasipungo plot will work five days a week; those who do not have a huasipungo plot will work for wages, and only when they choose;

6. Huasipungo plots will be returned to the peons from whom they were taken;

7. The daily wage for the peons will be forty centavos with the following guarantees: use of their huasipungo plots, abolishment of charging tithes (diezmos), free access to pasture land for animals in the páramo, not being subject to both the faena and tarea systems of labor on the same day--the day on which they give the tarea they will not be obliged to faena work and vice versa;

8. Whatever the form of work, the work day will not be longer than eight hours; in the situation in which the hacienda needs the work of the peons for longer than eight hours and they are obliged to work longer, for every hour over eight hours the peons will be paid ten centavos per hour;

9. The boyeros and cuentayos or caretakers of the animals will not be responsible for the death of the animals of which they are in charge, except in the case of malicious acts or if the peon abandons them; the custom of charging peons for animals which abort shall also be abolished;

10. The so-called reposición (replacement) by which peons are given the meat of dead animals so that they return a live animal shall be abolished;

11. The owners shall fix the places for storing the harvests, and until such time it shall be abolished the custom of giving the crops to the workers and latter make them responsible for the difference in weight, differences which generally are the result of the crops drying which result in a continued debt for the worker;

12. Those in charge of taking care of the animals shall not be employed in other labors, otherwise they shall be paid fifty centavos a day only for taking care of the animals;

13. Women employed in labors less difficult than the men shall earn thirty centavos a day;

14. Every year the accounts shall be settled, with the owner advising the Secretary of the Syndicate of this affair ten days in advance so that the Secretary or a representative or lawyer is personally present;

15. A school shall be established at the place called Pucará (in Pesillo);

16. Workers shall be paid bi-weekly;

17. Free medical care shall be granted to peons who become sick.

Source: "Pliego de peticiones que los sindicatos 'El Inca' y 'Tierra Libre' situados en la parroquia Olmedo, presentan a los arriendatarios de las haciendas donde trabajan," El Dia, January 6, 1931, 1.


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