It is widely assumed that informal workers, businesses and activities operate outside the reach of the law. However, in many countries, they are regulated in ways that are punitive. Most often, informal workers and businesses are excluded from labour, employment and business legislation, and are therefore denied the rights and entitlements afforded to formal employees and businesses. At the same time, informal workers, businesses and activities are regulated by a complex range of national, sector-specific and city-level legislation that are punitive in their effect, compromising their livelihoods and often violating their human rights. Police harassment of informal traders is ubiquitous, contravention of legislation is most often treated as a criminal offence, and informal workers are denied basic due process protections under rule of law.

In most countries, the legal framework focuses only on formal relationships, which for workers means labour and employment legislation based on an employer-employee relationship. Policy for informal workers is either in the form of small business support (with an emphasis on supply-side interventions such as micro-finance and business training), or poverty-alleviation projects (particularly for women, who are over-represented in the most low-income sectors). Informal workers—whether own-account workers, homeworkers or outworkers who participate in global value chains, or atypical wage workers whose rights have been eroded through corporate outsourcing and subcontracting—want to be recognized as workers who make a substantial contribution to the economy.

WIEGO’s Law Programme seeks to interrogate the ways in which laws impact the informal workforce and their livelihoods, and to empower informal workers and their organizations to challenge these negative impacts of law. The programme furthermore seeks to support WIEGO’s Organization and Representation Programme to build the capacity of these organizations to struggle for recognition and rights, including the implementation of International Labour Organization (ILO) Recommendations, Conventions and Standards in their respective countries.

Formalizing the informal economy means extending recognition, voice, economic opportunity, social protection and due process to informal workers—in short, realizing “decent work” for the informal economy. It means building the organizational strength and capacity of informal workers to claim rights as workers and citizens, and crafting new conceptual frameworks that enable the legal recognition of informal workers. And it means shifting the mindset of legal scholars and practitioners, national and global policy makers, trade unions and other civil society organizations to recognize informal workers as workers or economic agents.

See the International Labour Organization’s Recommendation No. 204 concerning the Transition from the Informal to the Formal Economy

Zehra Khan from Pakistan spoke on behalf of HomeNet at the ILC in Geneva.WIEGO helped Zehra prepare her speech, as well as her submission to the workers’ meeting on the inclusion of homeworkers.

In June 2016, members of WIEGO’s Organization and Representation Programme and its Law Programme, along with members of the WIEGO Network, participated in discussions on decent work in global supply chains at the International Labour Conference (ILC) in Geneva. Prior to the ILC, WIEGO convened a meeting in Ahmedabad, together with HomeNet South Asia, for its affiliates from 11 countries to establish a “ platform of demands” in preparation for the tripartite discussions (between governments, businesses, and workers) at the ILC. WIEGO accompanied 10 representatives from homeworkers’ membership-based organizations (the “worker group”) from around the world to Geneva. However, only the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) participated in the discussions as a recognized trade union.

At the ILC, WIEGO, SEWA and the representative worker group succeeded in getting homeworkers to be recognized as part of global supply chains. See the ILC’s resolutions and conclusions related to decent work in global supply chains.

Read the WIEGO blog on homeworkers.

Learn more

The Global Labour University, a network of trade unions, universities and the International Labour Organization (ILO), commissioned WIEGO’s Law Programme to evaluate existing supply chain governance mechanisms to determine whether, and how well, they might protect homeworkers (women who produce goods for global markets from their homes). At an October workshop in Kathmandu, sponsored by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, a paper by Law Programme Director Marlese von Broembsen and WIEGO researcher Jenna Harvey was workshopped with trade unions, the Trade Union Advisor to the OECD, and homeworker organizations from Cambodia, India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), which represents 168 million workers, argued for an update to the ILO’s MNE Declaration (concerning multinational enterprises and social policy) to incorporate the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The MNE and OECD processes are defining, in very concrete terms, what brands must do to (a) identify human rights abuses; (b) protect vulnerable workers in their supply chains from abuses; (c) prevent abuses and if they do happen, mitigate their effect; and (d) report how abuses in supply chains are being addressed. It is crucial for organizations that represent homeworkers to be involved in establishing these responsibilities. The Nepal workshop was the first step in this process. 

The UNHLP has appointed working groups for seven themes, which are charged with translating the high-level report into a practical implementation agenda. Marlese serves on the  Working Group on Ensuring Legal Protection and Reforming Discriminatory Laws and Regulations, which is tasked with identifying gaps in the first report and identifying implementation priorities for different stakeholders, including  governments and business.

The Human Rights Commission in Mexico City passed Recommendation 07/2016 on the inclusion of waste pickers in the city’s waste management system. WIEGO’s Latin American Law Programme Director, Tania Espinosa Sánchez has been involved in advocacy work on the omission of informal workers (waste pickers) in the city’s waste management service, and on the working conditions of formal and informal workers (waste pickers). Her advocacy has included appearing on television news reports to publicize the recommendation and the situation of waste pickers, drafting a letter to Mexico City’s government on behalf of WIEGO, and meeting with waste management workers to organize a protest to request the city government accept the recommendation. She also wrote the following:

• Read related op-eds: 1) La justicia en la basura   and 2) Día del barrendero, día de reflexión

In September 2016, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Zambia brought together key stakeholders in Africa with the aim of establishing a social protection floor for Africa. WIEGO Law Programme Coordinator for Africa, Pamhidzai (Pamhi) Bamu-Chipunza represented WIEGO’s Law Programme. Held in Entebbe, Uganda, the meeting brought together civil society (represented by the African Platform for Social Protection), labour (formal employees represented by the ITUC-Africa) and informal workers (represented by the WIEGO Network). The meeting’s aim was to begin the process of establishing a continental platform to advocate for social protection.

The overwhelming majority of informal workers are unable to access formal social protection mechanisms (social insurance, social assistance and social services), since the gateway for most mechanisms is formal employment, which covers a privileged minority in most African countries. WIEGO participated to ensure that stakeholders seriously consider the situation and needs of informal workers in discussions on how to reshape the continent’s social protection landscape.

WIEGO believes that informal workers must have voice—they must represent their concerns and demands themselves; WIEGO provides the support for them to do so. Together with WIEGO colleagues from the Social Protection Programme and Organizing and Representation Programme, Pamhi provided such support to workers from the WIEGO Network. For example, she interpreted for Nonhlanlha Mhlophe, a Zulu-speaking waste picker who represented the South African Waste Pickers’ Association. Nonhlanlha spoke about the many challenges that waste pickers face. She shared their frustrations with unsafe and unhygienic conditions on landfill sites, and lack of insurance and other protections for sickness or death of waste pickers and their family members. Waste pickers are also frustrated with government delays in allocating space for a waste recovery site. Nonhlanlha spoke movingly about the role and importance of organizing waste pickers to address their concerns collectively.

The meeting was a first step towards establishing a continental platform on social protection. Going forward, a steering committee will represent civil society, informal workers and formal workers and will develop strategies and identify targets for continental advocacy efforts. As a member of the steering committee, WIEGO will engage MBOs and other stakeholders to ensure that informal workers’ positions and demands are part of the advocacy efforts.

Recommendation No. 204 (R204) concerning the Transition from the Informal to the Formal Economy, adopted at the 2015 ILC, includes key provisions for those informally employed, both self-employed and wage employed. R204 notably includes recognition that:

• most informal workers are from poor households trying to earn a living against great odds and, therefore, need protection and promotion in return for regulation and taxation
• most informal economic units/enterprises are single person or family operations run by operators (“own account workers”) who do not hire others as employees
• informal livelihoods should not be destroyed in the process of formalization
• the principle of freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining applies to all workers in the informal economy, self-employed and wage employed
• regulated use of public space is essential to the livelihoods of informal self-employed in the informal sector, especially in cities
• regulated access to natural resources is essential to the livelihoods of informal self- employed in rural areas

To this end, R204 calls for governments to create an enabling environment for informal employees and enterprise operators to exercise their right to organize and to bargain collectively (with employer organizations or government respectively) and to participate in social dialogue in the transition to the formal economy. Governments are also encouraged to consult representative organizations of informal workers and employers concerning the design, implementation and monitoring of policies and programmes of relevance to the informal economy, including its formalization.

Learn about WIEGO’s role in ILC 2015 and achieving R204.

In April 2016, WIEGO, including the Law Programme, participated in a workshop on R204 held in Johannesburg. The workshop was spearheaded by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) together with WIEGO’s Organizing and Representation Programme, with support from the ILO’s Pretoria office.

The aim of the workshop was to build the capacity of South African constituencies and to provide participants with an opportunity to make concrete proposals for government action and implementing R204. Informal workers were represented in each of three clusters: workers operating in private homes; workers in public spaces and in industries; and, participants involved in research and policymaking.

Key outcomes included the establishment of a working group of all stakeholders and an agreement to commission a research study analyzing the gaps between South African law and the principles of R204. Developments will be shared in future issues of this newsletter. 

On February 5, 2017, Mexico City published its first Constitution. Leading up to this historic event, Tania Espinosa Sánchez was involved in advocacy to ensure informal workers’ were recognized. The following provisions that protect informal workers were included in the Constitution: Article 10 confers protection for domestic and care workers; article 10 also states that self-employed workers who produce or sell goods and crafts have the right to decent work and formal recognition to associate, to defend their interests, and to receive training. In addition, city authorities guarantee tenants of public markets adequate sanitary conditions, safety and security. And market vendors will enjoy the same rights as self employed workers.

The Right to the City was incorporated under article 12 and the Right to Public Space with a social function under article 13. Furthermore, article 16 prohibits the privatization and concession of public services for the collection and treatment of solid waste.

See the Constitution (in Spanish).

Currently, Mexico’s Federal Labour Law establishes rights for domestic workers, but they are not the same rights as enjoyed by formal workers. To gain equality, domestic workers have been requesting different government officials ratify C189 and provide social protection rights for the sector. This could lead to new legislation and/or social protection schemes.

In this Regional Exchange, domestic workers from Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Jamaica and Uruguay, many of them IDWF affiliates, shared how they achieved social protection schemes in their countries with a group of Mexican workers. The participants developed a political platform on social protection for SINACTRAHO to use in Mexico. ILO representatives attended this exchange to provide the results of their research on social protection in Latin America. Learn more.

• Protecting Homeworkers In Global Supply Chains - Don’t miss this post by Marlese von Broembsen on the UN Guiding Principles as a rights-based approach to regulating global value chains on WIEGO’s blog.
  
  
• Read our Legal Briefs (and watch for new publications coming soon!)
  
  
• Visit the website at wiego.org/law