Isabel Matute (at front), president of the Women Shoe Workers Association and Antonia Rico, a shoe worker, at her home. Photo: Rocío Ros Rebollo. All rights reserved.
“If we stop, you don’t walk” is the arresting motto of the Women Shoe Workers Association (WSA) of Elche, a small city in south-eastern Spain. This group was established last year to expose two open secrets in the country’s so-called ‘Footwear Capital’: the lack of formal employment contracts and poor working conditions that many shoe workers in this area have endured for decades.
