Ahmedabad, India: Bhavna Ben Ramesh sews handmade purses out of her home. Her work is essential to her family’s income, though women’s home-based work often goes unrecognised. Bhavna joined the Self Employed Women’s Organization (SEWA), a trade union that works to secure the rights of workers in the informal sector, and Mahila Housing Trust (MHT), a NGO that improves the housing conditions of poor, informally employed women, and received training on how to better market her products and to whom.
(Paula Bronstein/Getty Images Reportage)
Collective bargaining must be at the heart of the upcoming International Labour Conference (ILC), as member states confront the sluggish progress made worldwide towards formalisation of the informal economy, despite a landmark Recommendation being made a decade ago.
ILO Recommendation 204 on the Transition from the Informal to the Formal Economy (R204) was adopted in 2015. It outlines principles for addressing decent work deficits in the informal economy, through formalisation. In its report for the upcoming 113th session, the ILO focuses on innovative approaches that have the potential to accelerate and scale up implementation of R204.
In the run up to the ILC, collective bargaining – a key area where innovation is critical – risks being overlooked. R204 affirms that all workers in the informal economy regardless of their employment status – including self-employed or own-account workers – have a right to bargain collectively.
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