1. WIDE Annual Conference 2009 WE CARE! Power Relations along the Care Chains WIEGO‘s approach to improve the status of informal workers, especially women with special attention for domestic workers Karin Pape WIEGO European Regional Advisor CH-Basel, 19 June 2009 Global Labour Institute, Avenue Wendt 12, CH-1203 Geneva, www.global-labour.org, gli@iprolink.ch; karinpape@wanadoo.frwww.global-labour.orggli@iprolink.chkarinpape@wanadoo.fr

2. What is WIEGO?* (*Women in Informal Economy: Globalizing and Organizing; www.wiego.org) www.wiego.org WIEGO is a research-policy network Three constitutiencies: member-based organisations of informal workers research, statistical and academic institutions development agencies of various types (non- governmental and inter-governmental)

3. What does WIEGO? Five Programmes: Global Markets Organization and Representation Social Protection Statistics Urban Policies  Aim of the network: improve the status of the working poor, especially women, in the informal economy

4. Why WIEGO? 550 million working poor earning less USD$ 1 per day majority of working poor in the informal economy earnings low – risks high informal employment has persisted or even grown

5. EXPANDED DEFINITION OF THE INFORMAL ECONOMY The informal economy is the diversified set of economic activities, enterprises, and jobs that are not regulated or protected by the state. So defined, the informal economy/informal employment includes: Self-employment in informal enterprises: self-employed persons in small unregistered or unincorporated enterprises, including:  employers  own account operators  unpaid contributing family workers Wage employment in informal jobs: wage workers without legal protection for formal or informal firms, for households, or with no fixed employer, including:  non-standard employees of informal enterprises  non-standard employees of formal enterprises  casual or day labourers  industrial outworkers (also called homeworkers) Note: Expanded definition endorsed by the International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) in 2003. Categories in bold were not included in earlier 1993 ICLS definition of "informal sector“.

6. STRUCTURE OF LABOUR MARKETS Developed vs. Developing Countries: – share of total employment that is non-standard or informal developed countries: 25-40% developing countries: 60-90% – share of non-agricultural employment that is self-employment developed countries: 12% developing countries: 31-55% Developing Regions: share of total employment that is informal – South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa: largest share (>85%) – other regions: South East and East Asia (75%) Latin America (60%) Middle East and North Africa (60%) Sources: ILO-WIEGO 2002

7. STRUCTURE OF INFORMAL LABOUR MARKET Unpaid Contributing Family Workers Industrial Outworkers/Homeworkers Industrial Wage Workers: Casual Own Account Operators Informal Wage Workers Employers

8. GENDERED PATTERNS WITHIN INFORMAL LABOUR MARKET Poverty Risk Average Earnings Segmented by Sex Low High Predominantly Men Men and Women Predominantly Women High Low Unpaid Contributing Family Workers Industrial Outworkers/Homeworkers Industrial Wage Workers: Casual Own Account Operators Informal Wage Workers Employers

9. WIEGO‘s Pathway of Change „Enhanced ability of the working poor, especially women, in the informal economy,to work their way out of poverty“ Precondition 1: Increased Voice Outcome: Stronger MBOs of informal workers – StreetNet International HomeNets SEWA Other workers‘ and women‘s organizations to include informal workers, especially women (i.e. Ghana TUC, Nigeria TUC, GEFONT Nepal,CROC Mexico, CAW) In the making: Waste Pickers‘ Network and International Domestic Workers‘ Network ( jointly with IUF) Preconditon 2: Increased Visibility Outcome: WIEGO helped to improve statistics and research on the informal economy Improving definition of informal work (classification) Gathering statistics (part of the International Labour Statistician – Delhi group) Dissiminating Statistics (i.e. ILO publicaton „Men and women in the informal economy“) Giving technical assistance to governments how to improve Statistics on request (Delhi group)

10. One example: the way to the International Domestic Workers‘ Network (IDWN) Amsterdam Conference November 2008 (IRENE, FNV, WIEGO, others to contribute) Mandate to work towards an international network IUF (International Union of Food-, Hotel- Restaurant and Agricultural Workers; www.iuf.org ) supported the initiative and serves as an umbrella organisation (among others: affiliates domestic workers‘ trade unions) www.iuf.org Setting up a technical team (IUF, WIEGO, IRENE) Forming a Steering Committee in October 2008 in Geneva Steering Committee met in June 2009 in Geneva (ILO training) and decided on a structure, rules, membership form, campaign strategies (i.e. ILO Convention), action plan etc.

11. The Steering Committee (IDWN) Africa: SADSAWU (South African Domestic Service and Allied Workers‘ Union Asia: Asian Domestic Workers‘ Network, represented at the moment by the Nepali Domestic Workers‘ Union Latin America: CONLATRAHO (incl. Canada) Caribbean: NUDE (National Union of Domestic Employees) Europe: RESPECT to be invited United States: National Alliance of Domestic Workers