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Organising strategies It is now quite widely accepted by the international trade union movement today that its very survival depends on organising workers in the informal economy and new forms of work. It is also widely accepted that new strategies are needed to organise these workers, and the traditional organisational strategies used by the formal sector trade unions are not necessarily appropriate. But what are these new strategies? There is no blueprint. Those already doing it are inventing new strategies as they go along. Here we present some cases of creative organizing, and new approaches to collective bargaining, which are in operation in the informal economy and in new forms of work. Collective Bargaining A meeting on 'Collective Bargaining in the informal economy and laws and litigation strategies in the street vending sector' was held near Dakar, Senegal, 26 – 30 March 2007. It was attended by informal economy organisations from 14 countries. The participants discussed the difficulties and obstacles to collective bargaining, compared with formal economy workers who have used collective bargaining in a conventional employment relationship with the employer. At the Senegal meeting the strategies which informal economy organisations can use to engage in collective bargaining and the appropriate partners with whom they could negotiate to resolve the numerous problems faced by unprotected workers were identified. What innovative new organising strategies have you heard of? Send us your ideas, e-mail stnet@iafrica.com Informal Economy Organisation Databases
Informal economy trade unions ASIA - India The Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA), India: SEWA was registered as a trade union in 1972 and is the best international example of informal economy organisation. Over 90% of employment in India is in the informal economy. SEWA has over 700 000 members. SEWA's members are poor self-employed women including street and market vendors, homeworkers, bidi makers and construction workers. SEWA combines three movements: union movement, co-operative movement and the women's movement. SEWA SEWA Craft SitesAFRICA
In Ghana informal
employment represents 89% of total employment, in Zambia it is 83% and in
Mozambique between 30-40% of households are dependent on informal sources
of income. The organising strategies of
street vendor organisations in Kenya, Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe and
Zambia is documented in the report below:
Forces
for Change - Informal Economy organisations in Africa,
(two PDF files 450k part
1
and
part 2) Ghana
Kwasi Adu-Amankwah, Secretary-General
"Organizing informal sector workers requires nurturing dynamic links with the relevant public authorities and institutions, both national and international, that can provide the necessary support." The article below by Kwasi Adu-Amankwah is a survey of informal economy work and organisation by the Ghana TUC. Trade unions in the informal sector (Labour Education No 116, ILO) (19 pages).Regional Organisations: LATIN AMERICA Central America and Panama - La Red de Sindicatos de la economía informal de Centroamérica y Panamá (SEICAP). Countries - Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Panama. Punto de Encuentro (Point of Encounter) Nº 35 (October, 2006) This issue of the newsletter, published by the informal economy desk of the regional organisation of trade unions of the Americas, PROSIE ORIT-ICFTU, is dedicated to the creation of SEICAP, the network of informal economy trade unions of Central America and Panama in September, 2006 (translated from Spanish). Click here for CIOSL-ORIT Informal Economy Programme PROSIE website and back issues of Punto de Encuentro Memoria del SEICAP Minutes of the 2nd meeting of SEICAP, 1st and 2nd September 2006. Summary (translation from Spanish) includes presentations by member trade unions, Objectives and functions of SEICAP, and Plan of Action (Labour rights and identity). Click here for summary of the proceedings (English) International Networks: ICC: The International Co-ordinating Committee (ICC) for Organising in the Informal Economy
Global Union Federations
(GUFs):
Two GUFs that are working
to support the recognition and organisation of
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