International Labour Organisation: Conference breaks new ground

“Most own account workers are as insecure as other wage workers”

By Pat Horn

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conference at its 90th session in Geneva, on 20 June 2002, broke new ground by adopting a new approach to the informal economy which will for the first time include `own-account’ workers, or those who are self-employed.

Originally the "informal sector" was taken by the ILO in the 1970s to mean those working for wages. It has now been broadened to apply to the whole "informal economy".

The ILO now recognises that workers in the informal economy are not necessarily employees with employers: “Workers in the informal economy include both wage workers and own-account workers. Most own-account workers are as insecure and vulnerable as wage workers and move from one situation to another. Because they lack protection, rights and representation, these workers often remain trapped in poverty (Clause 4).”

Research by Women in Informal Employment: Globalising and Organising (WIEGO) provides clear statistical evidence of the importance of the informal economy. In Africa, the informal sector is estimated to comprise over 70% of non-agricultural employment, in Asia, 50-80% of non-agricultural employment, in Latin America and the Carribean 55% of non-agricultural employment. The ILO’s Conclusions have relevance for a significant part of the world’s labour force.

Their main thrust is to promote laws, policies and programmes by governments, employer organisations, workers’ organisations and the ILO itself, such as the following:

•  “Governments to provide an enabling framework at national and local levels to support representational rights” (Clause 23). This presents a big challenge, particularly for the newly recognised category of own-account workers, who normally find themselves outside of the scope of national labour legislation due to the fact that they are not in an employer-employee relationship.
•  “Public authorities should include such organisations in public policy debates, and provide them access to the services and infrastructure they need to operate effectively and efficiently and protect them from harrassment or unjustified or discriminatory eviction” (Clause 23). This is a clear reference to the relationship between street vendors and local authorities, which has not traditionally been seen as a labour or work issue in the past.

Guidelines contained in the Conclusions are that:

• workers in the informal economy should be brought into the economic and social mainstream rather than treated as part of a parallel or dual economy;
• all poverty reduction strategies should specifically address the problems in the informal economy;
• social security coverage should be extended to currently-excluded workers in the informal economy.

Despite the fact that many workers in the informal economy are not yet organised, the rights of workers in the informal economy to freedom of association and direct representation in negotiations are given prominence in the new ILO conclusions. Employers’ and workers’ organisations are tasked with:

“extending membership and services to employers and workers in the informal economy, and encouraging and supporting the creation and development of new membership-based, accessible, transparent, accountable and democratically managed representative organisations, including bringing them into social dialogue processes (Clause 31)’.”

Lastly, the ILO office itself is tasked with implementing a comprehensive programme “involving the promotion of rights, decent employment, social protection and social dialogue... (and) should focus on assisting member States in addressing governance, employment-generation and poverty-reduction issues (Clause 35)”. Provision is made for the ILO to include such activities in their budgets and technical assistance priorities worldwide.