Mondays are quiet in the markets. There’s a Guatemalan saying that “even chickens don’t lay eggs on Mondays.” But Sandra Peralta Pérez has come to the market this Monday to tell us her story. Communicating is her lifeblood; it’s how she helped to found a union and lifted herself out of a violent, unstable situation, and how she is now able to help her fellow vendors.

Sandra, 50, runs a stall these days at the orderly Bethania Mercado in Guatemala City, selling products such as yoghourt, cereal and cookies. But the single mother of three and life-long vendor used to work on 6th Avenue, a busy road off Plaza de la Constitución, where authorities often harassed vendors and confiscated their goods. Then, in 2010 it got a lot worse.

“There were more evictions, they hit me, there were fights,” said Sandra, with straightforward simplicity. Her sons were young and when her goods were confiscated, “it was super hard. I had to ask friends or someone else for money.”

All this, because the municipality wanted to turn 6th Avenue into a pedestrian mall, primarily for tourism. “The situation was terrible,” she recalled.

Sandra and her fellow vendors, including Julio Cruz , found an ally in vendor and activist Jorge Peralta. Together with other vendors they founded FENTRAVIG, the National Federation of Independent Workers and Street Vendors from Guatemala, which is now an affiliate of StreetNet International.

“We wanted to gather because we knew we couldn’t do it on our own,” said Sandra

They had about 30 members, but most vendors were afraid of organizing, she said. And there were critics, “people who said the unions were only there to get money from you and wouldn’t help you do your work.”

“We felt we needed to keep communicating and organizing so everyone could keep selling. That’s how we grew.” Communication was the key. FENTRAVIG distributed a brochure outlining vendors’ Constitutional right to work and explaining what these laws mean in a practical sense. For example, municipal authorities are not allowed to evict them; that is the purview of national police.

“Many didn’t know their rights,” said Sandra. “We do have the right to decent work, to feed our families. They can’t take away that right. They have to respect it.”

The brochure also provided information on what action vendors could take, including contacts for filing complaints, alerting authorities, and getting in touch with FENTRAVIG.

They were no longer fighting alone, said Sandra, “and it wasn’t just us telling them what to do, they understood on their own.”

Vendors saw results from organizing; FENTRAVIG now has about 5,000 members.

These days, Sandra has cut her market hours due to health issues, but she still works four days a week. She’s been a vendor or hawker for as long as she can recall; her parents were also vendors. Sandra says all these years later, she still likes interacting with customers and takes joy in satisfying their needs.

Despite her health, she still holds a union position in the area of conflicts and agreements, where her communication skills are vital. She meets with vendors and authorities to create a dialogue and negotiate a resolution.

“If we don’t reach an agreement or respect orders, there may be violence. People may go to jail, and that’s not good for the movement,” she said. “We want to collaborate.”

In her Bethania Mercado, for example, the vendors take turns doing weekly clean ups, “so the municipality can see we are willing to do things rights. It’s reciprocity.”

She also resolves disputes among vendors. For example, in her market, vendors working in the market building don’t like hawkers. “But we all have a right to work,” said Sandra.

Since the problems at 6th Avenue, the municipality is hassling vendors less, says Jorge, who is now the general secretary of FENTRAVIG. He said the struggle is continuing in a different way to obtain, for example, social security and insurance and to try to educate politicians.

Sandra says her greatest hope is that they can work in a legal way: “to be established as a market.” This is her hope for all vendors.