Brazilian Housecleaners Go Green and Worker-friendly

Housecleaners attend a training session of Vida Verde. (Courtesy photos: Vida Verde)

These days, the Vida Verde cooperative is looking more to the future than to its green past. For almost three years, the Boston-based co-op has trained more than 100 Brazilian housecleaners on using natural chemical-free formulas as their cleaning products.

People like Rita de Cássia Tomás, who has cleaned homes for nine years, have recognized immediately the benefits of natural products.  The frequent exposure to chemicals in furniture polishers and cleaners had been taking a toll on Tomás’ health.

“My right hand started itching so much that sometimes it bled,” she said.Vida Verde, or Green Life, was founded by the Brazilian Women’s Group, a 13-year-old nonprofit that adopted and popularized a cleaning formula with ingredients as basic as water, vinegar and borax.

None of the current 18 members pays a dime to be part of the co-op, and training sessions include a six-week English course and a computer literacy program. The co-op has been funded with a grant from the National Institute for Safety and Occupational Health, a federal agency. However, the funding of about $40,000 a year will run out in July 2009.

The ICA Group, a national nonprofit that seeks to create and save jobs through the strengthening of employee-owned cooperatives and community-based projects, is crafting a business plan for Vida Verde.

According to Heloisa Galvão, president of the Brazilian Women’s Group, which is based in the Allston area of Boston, ICA is considering some options.  One of them is for the co-op to start charging a monthly fee from members, or it could gain independent status and create a business franchise model.

To be self-sustainable, an ICA preliminary report concluded, Vida Verde has to own contracts for at least 400 homes, or 220 to break even. As the media praised the co-op’s environmental-friendly approach, Vida Verde referred 90 new homes to its members.

Housecleaners with the best English skills and the strongest social networks build their “home schedules,” how the lining up of cleaning contracts is known in the field. The more successful ones, who usually have been in the business the longest, can afford to hire cleaners to help them. 

But the helpers, usually newer immigrants, make minimum wage, scrubbing bathrooms. Some clean seven homes a day for just $60.

That’s why Vida Verde also established rules to guarantee fairness for employees. For instance, it’s forbidden for a member to pay her helper less than 40 percent of the house contract’s value. 

“The co-op’s fundamental goal is not primarily to offer employment, but to let the housecleaners know that it’s possible to work in a marketplace where they won’t be exploited anymore,” said Galvão.

Monica Chianelli, Vida Verde’s coordinator, knows well both the financial and health aspects of the business.  Chianelli, a 30-hour-a-week employee of the Brazilian Women’s Group, used to work exclusively with housecleaning, and the chemical products aggravated her asthma.

“The [chemical-free] product formula we use is simple and cost-effective. It’s not uncommon for members to tell us that homeowners felt the difference in their home floors and asked more details about the products. Those are the ones willing to refer the co-op to friends,” said Chianelli.

But the coop’s diligence isn’t perfect. Two weeks ago, a new member felt dizzy after spraying a commonly-used cleaning product in a home bathroom and was rushed to a hospital.

Chianelli says that until July of 2009, when the co-op’s federal grant expires, Vida Verde is not accepting new members.

“Our long-term goal is for all members to be self-sustainable while spreading the fairer and healthier practices they learned here,” says Chianelli.

“They have a few months to think about what they want to make of this group that helped them understand the business better. The meaning ‘co-op’ will never be more important than in July,” said Galvão.

Learn more about Vida Verde at verdeamarelo.org or call the co-op at 617-787-0557 ext. 14.

Source:  EthnicNEWz.org

Copyright 2008 New England Ethnic News, EthnicNEWz.org.  All rights reserved.  This material may not be published, rewritten, broadcast or distributed without the permission of the source.  Contact NEWz for more information at EthnicNews {at} yahoo {dot} com.

At a meeting of Vida Verde, housecleaning trainers show how to make chemical-free cleaning products made of ingredients as basic as vinegar, borax and baking soda. (Courtesy photo: Vida Verde)