1. ITCILO COURSE A Trade Union on Employment Relations & Informal Economy 20 February to 2 March Organising Atypical and Informal Economy Workers: Opportunities and Challenges for Trade Unions

2. Objective
Aims:
To improve the visibility and status of the working poor, especially women, in the informal economy through increased organisation and their effective representation by trade unions.
To achieve rights at work for informal economy workers in law and practice, including the:
- rights to organise,
- right to represent,
- right to negotiate and of their voices to be heard through collective power
- right for decent income, working conditions, social protection & social dialogue

3. Objective
Achieve collective trade union protection for informal economy workers
Create conditions for the empowerment of informal economy workers through knowledge development, management and dissemination
Reinforced unity and solidarity among informal economy workers and between them and other workers, including those within the formal economy

4. Targeted Workplaces and Groups
Streets
Markets
Open spaces
Construction sites
Vehicular parks
Shops
Workshops
Yards
Homes and households
Fields
Forests
water
Vendors
Waste collectors
Road side shoe shiners
hairdressers
Construction workers
Transport workers
Embroiderers
Garment makers
Waster sorters/recyclers
Shoe makers
Metal good producers
Coffin makers
Craft producers
Electronic assemblers
Toy makers
Domestic workers/care givers
Small farmers/agricultural labourers/shepherds
Forest gatherers
Fisher folk
Water transport workers

5. Opportunities Strategy for: - Rebuilding the trade union movement
- Increasing the membership and strength of the trade union movement
- Enhancing unity and solidarity of workers
- Improving the financial position of the trade union movement
- Extending union protection to atypical and informal economy workers, including women workers who constitute the majority of workers in this locale
- Curbing child labour, forced labour & discrimination

6. “Combining our Efforts” Building a Movement
Informal Worker Organisations
Trade Unions
Support Organisations
Women’s and Social Movements , NGOs etc
Social Movements and other organizations

7. Challenges
Solidarity and collective action is not always a natural tendency among own-account workers as they may be in competition with each other
Many atypical and informal economy workers perceive their work as an extension of domestic or family duties and lack a sense of a worker identity
Labour laws often encompasses only workers in clearly defined employment relationships – not informal contractual relationships
Many informal workers are situated in scattered, individualized workplaces or are mobile – for them, time away from work means loss of earnings

8. Challenges
Trade unions have enough on their hands, let alone free up resources to devote to hard-to-organise atypical workers.
Most atypical workers face extreme poverty – their ability to pay regular union dues is severely restricted and may be erratic and vulnerable to external shocks.
Also, organisng workers in the informal economy is often seen as a drain on union resources.

9. Innovative Organising Strategies
Demand the ratification and implementation of ILS concerning FoA, CB & Domestic Workers.
Ensure that rights at work is applicable to all categories of workers.
Advocate for new international labour standards, which address issues such as legal protection and extension of FoA and CB coverage to workers in precarious and typical forms of work
Promote FoA and CB – actions should be extended to areas such as trade, investment and procurement

10. Innovative Organising Strategies
Formal sector trade unions should recruit informal workers and newly-formed unions of informal workers into their memberships.
Undertake targeted organising campaigns
Use a twin strategy of struggle and development by combining unionism and cooperative to reach out to atypical and informal workers.
Build synergies with service providers that are active within the informal economy.
Work with the Media (Print & Electronic) to project the image of the trade union movement in the public sphere.

11. Innovative Organising Approaches & Models
Community-based unionism
Multi-hat unionism
Enterprise-based unionism
Alliance building
National and international Networks

12. The End
Thank you! 