Security for women working informally: Between labour law, urban regulation and social protection

1. Security for women working informally: Between labour law, urban regulation and social protection Francie Lund WIEGO: Social Protection Programme and University of KwaZulu-Natal: School of Built Environment and Development Studies At the Conference Women and Poverty: A Human Rights Approach Kigali, Rwanda, 29th April 2014

3. The argument in summary • To address the poverty of women, there is a need to address women’s employment • The majority of working women are employed informally. • Informal work is without legal or social protection. • Thus (with a few exceptions), labour law does not reach women in the informal economy. • It is unlikely that many informal workers will rapidly be formalized (as being debated in the ILC of the ILO in 2014 and 2105). • Women who work informally fall through cracks between different regulatory regimes – especially between national and municipal level. • What other interventions can protect the security of poorer women workers?

4. Informal employment as a share of non-agricultural employmentSource: Heintz for ILO and WIEGO 2012

5. Stylised gender patterns in formal and informal employment • More women than men in informal work • Men earn more in both formal and informal work • Men are more likely to employ others • Women experience a more defined and lower glass ceiling (a cap on upward mobility) • When entering the urban informal sector, men have more work experience than women • Where women have worked before, it is likely to have been in domestic work

6. Segmentation in the informal economy Source: Marty Chen, WIEGO Working Paper No. 1

7. International Classification of Status in Employment • Self-Employed in Informal Enterprises (i.e. unregistered and/or small) • employers (who employ others) • own account operators (who do not employ others) • unpaid contributing family workers • members of informal producer cooperatives • Wage Workers in Informal Jobs (i.e. jobs without employment-linked social protection) • informal employees of informal enterprises • informal employees of formal firms • domestic workers hired by households

8. Labour law • Is premised on the employer-employee relationship • The majority of informal workers are self-employed, and may employ others

9. Informal workers • Self-employed workers: by definition, outside the scope of labour regulation • Employees: outside the scope of labour regulation • Labour regulation is limited to formal physical places of work • Shops, offices, factories, mines • NOT sidewalks, informal markets, private homes, backyards, refuse dumps • By definition, informal workers are outside the scope of work-related/ employment-based social protection

10. Occupations and places of work in which women are numerous: autonomy and risk • homeworkers/ industrial outworkers • own private dwelling • domestic workers • someone else’s private dwelling • street and market vendors • public space controlled by local authority, or privately owned markets • waste pickers • public or private waste dumps • residential areas

11. National legislation - India • Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act 7 of 2014 • There must be a Town and Zonal Vending Committee in every city • 2.5% of city population must be eligible for a vending certificate • This overrides municipal laws • Provides concrete actions that expand on the right to vend, and to have representation • Key role of NASVI (National Alliance of Street Vendors of India), SEWA (Self-Employed Womens Association, India) and many civil society organisations over many years • WIEGO’s Law and Informality project monitors implementation of the Act

12. National legislation – homeworkers in Thailand • At least half a million homeworkers, the majority of whom are women • Many work for an industrial enterprise • Homeworkers Protection Act B.E. 2553, 2011 • Fair wages, with equal pay for men and women • Hirer must provide a contract and ensure occupational health and safety • Hirer must establish a committee that gives access to courts in labour disputes • Active involvement and advocacy for a decade by Homenet Thailand Source: WIEGO: Winning Legal Rights for Thailand’s Homeworkers

13. Actions against informal tradersSource: WIEGO Evictions Database June 2012 through March 2013, mainstream English- and Spanish language news items (thus incomplete) • Livelihood impacts included: • Loss or confiscation of merchandise • Demolition of stalls or kiosks • Arrests and/ or imprisonment • Violence – including beatings, teargas and rubber bullets • Fines • “I had over 200 men’s suits … they have all gone. They have destroyed my life.”

14. Litigation in Bogota, Colombia and in Durban, South Africa – informal workers against the municipality • Bogota municipality gave contracts to private firms to collect waste, and excluded traditional collectives of waste recyclers from tender process. • Association of Waste recyclers of Bogota (ARB) won the right to compete in waste recycling markets. • ARB won the right to collect along street routes they have traditionally collected from. • Durban municipality allowed private developer to design a mall which would destroy the traditional fruit and veg market • Legal Resources Centre (NGO) won the case on administrative law: the municipal tender process was judged to have been irregular

15. Warwick Junction in Durban CBD

16. Deprivation of property • South African Constitution Section 25: • ‘No law may permit arbitrary deprivation of property …’ • Under consideration for litigation by an NGO which supports informal workers in Durban, when vendors’ goods are confiscated by municipality

17. Social protection • Informal workers may receive social protection benefits as citizens • Rare examples of successful, sustainable social protection provision • Likely exclusion from global social protection floor • Link between child care and women’s incomes and thereby to women’s economic empowerment • Importance of informal women workers’ participation in policy forums/ policy reform • But SEWA, NASVI, Homenet Thailand, and others

18. Different sectors suggest different possibilities for social protection • Homeworkers/ industrial outworkers • Improve the conditions under which they are incorporated into value chains • Ethical Trading Initiative and codes of conduct • Thailand’s social security fund • Waste pickers • Co-ops negotiating with local government and MNCs • Extended Product Responsibility • Street and market vendors • Health and safety improvements through local government • Urban design and equipment design • Infrastructure provision

19. Recognition and representation • Recognition in law as workers • Registration at city level as workers • Recognition as workers in different occupations • Vendors, construction workers, domestic workers, etc • Recognition of economic contribution to GDP, and to the local economy • Representation as interested parties

20. Finally The importance of infrastructural provision (by local cities and towns) as a form of social and economic security, to secure better incomes. Women and poverty: The importance of child care in social protection – because of the link with women’s incomes. Child care is not at present an ILO core component of social security. Social policy and social protection cannot redress the effects of macro-economic and trade policies that reinforce inequality and insecurity and exclusion. It may be that commercial rights and property rights and access to public space are more pertinent than labour law to women’s security.