Women and Globalisation Brazil Germany South Africa Domestic work Domestic work is seen as a female af­fair and is either performed or paid by women. But, if women's jobs pay small earnings, earnings of domestic aids are even smaller. Women force other women to accept low wages. The issue of domestic servants is dis­puted among feminists. It is clear that the burden of domestic work cannot be dumped on the allegedly"unskilled" migrants. The voucher model includes social security of domestic aids. 30% of gainfully employed women in South Africa work as domestic servants. Statistics often do not take them into account. Social benefits According to the region, everybody who has been employed for a period of at least 12 months is entitled to un­employment benefit for 4 to 5 months. Finding a new job, however, normally takes 1 to 2 years. A minimal pension often supports a number of families. There are no public benefits for single parents or unmarried mothers. Women are habitually unemployed for a longer period than men. Their income often cannot provide for a living, their social security depends on the husband as the main breadwinner. Women over the age of 50 receive the so-called blue card money from the contributions previously deduced from their salaries. Unemployed un­der the age of 50 are not entitled to benefits. Pensions and social assis­tance payments are small. * Brazilian women define collective bargaining as pay settlements and agreements on general working conditions ne­gotiated between private employers and trade unions or, in the case of the public sector, between the government and unions. There are in addition more extensive negotiations with the government on social rights and social legislation. Pay and working conditions are negotiated with private employers for the workforce of all enterprises in the region/ the state whom the trade union is representing. Works councils may also negotiate separately at the level of individual enterprises with the aim of supplementing the issues negotiated by the union. Digression: Women in agriculture Agricultural workers in Brazil and South Africa, contrary to the situation in Germany, are union­ised and part of the working class. In the econ­omy of both countries, the rural workers, and the agricultural sector, play a more important role than in Germany. The Brazilian and South African unions would correspond to the Deut­sche Bauernverband(German Association of Farmers) and its sister organisation, the Land­frauenverband(German Association of Rural Women). In Germany, with a majority of owner­occupied farm holdings(with additional ten­ancy), the problem of the landless agricultural workers does not exist. The Brazilian agriculture is a domain of men and old people. The majority of women migrate to the cities where they find work more easily than men. Female agricultural workers get only half the pay of their male colleagues. Whenever women run their own farm as head of the house­hold, they are not considered as farmers but as housewives, which has a negative impact on their entitlement to old-age pensions. Social se­curity for family-run farms is negotiated with the government on a national level. Collective bargaining for the landless agricultural workers is conducted at farm level. The Agricultural Workers' Union does not only represent the landless(often equated with the movement of the landless), but also those who run their own farms. Apart from the Agricultural Workers' Union, founded in 1963, the churches organise autono­mous women's groups at the rural grass roots. In the trade unions women have struggled for women's issues at a local level since 1979. In 1985, the first demonstration of female agri­cultural workers took place, with the farming women claiming to be recognised(instead of being classified as mere housewives). Today, nearly half of the executive positions in the union are occupied by women. The nomination of a female president has remained a single ex­21