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HOW THE HOME WORK CONVENTION EMERGED

The “discovery” of the informal sector:

In the 1950s and ‘60s, it was generally accepted that, if the right political and economic concepts were brought to bear, the economies of the poor countries could be transformed into dynamic modern economies. Street vendors, small producers, homeworkers and various types of casual workers would vanish, as they would have found a place in a modern, market-oriented economy with proper employment relations. This view was rooted in experiences of industrial development in Europe and Japan and of the expansion of mass production in the USA.

The reality in many developing countries gave rise to doubts, so the International Labour Organisation conducted research on employment in various countries. The first such study was on Kenya, in 1972. Not only did these analyses show that the traditional sector still existed, they also indicated that it had grown. The informal sector had been “discovered”. Although the phenomenon of the shadow economy had already been discussed during the 1970s, for example in Italy and other Mediterranean countries, public awareness of an “informal sector” in the industrialised countries did not develop until the 1980s. It was in 1991 that the informal sector first appeared on the agenda of the International Labour Conference.

From the informal sector to the informal economy

During the ‘90s, the term “informal economy” came to replace the previously used “informal sector”. There was a new realisation that the formal and informal areas of the economy are interdependent. The informal area is not a separate sector of a national economy, but an integral part of it, particularly since the transnational concerns began to restructure their production worldwide. This led to the development of small core workforces with onward links to a network of smaller enterprises operating worldwide, to intermediaries and to the homeworkers, who were right at the end of the production chain. This is particularly true for some areas of the textile and garment, footwear and toy industries. It is characteristic of these types of organisation that the outsourcing of tasks goes hand in hand with the outsourcing of workers’ rights. Homeworkers - although, for example, they sew teeshirts for Nike – have no entitlement to the negotiated rate for the job, to paid leave or to social security. Their pay is so low that they can, at best, just exist on it. Sometimes, it covers only part of the income that a family needs. In most cases, homeworkers’ earnings do not permit them to insure themselves against life’s risks.

Deregulation versus international Conventions

This development led organisations that had homeworkers in membership, such as India’s SEWA and others, to campaign for an international ILO Convention that would give homeworkers the same rights as formally employed workers on, among other things, pay, working conditions, occupational health and safety and social security. They were also to have the right to organise. The campaigners were convinced that the worldwide deregulation of employment relationships could be countered only through international standard-setting on these relations. Only then could firms compete on equal terms and working people enjoy at least minimum protection.

Active lobbying, as well as initiatives by worker representatives within the ILO, led to the inclusion of home work on the agenda of the International Labour Conference (ILC) in 1995 and 1996. The Employers’ Group wanted to prevent the adoption of an international Convention. Even though the Workers’ Group offered to accept any compromise negotiated between the Governments and the Employers’ Group, the employers refused to talk about this. During the final vote, they abstained, so as to prevent the adoption of a new instrument. However, the overwhelming majority of States, together with the Workers’ Group, voted for the Home Work Convention. It was therefore adopted at the 1996 ILC. Both the majority of Governments and the Workers’ Group regretted that the employers had avoided discussion of the issue and, by abstaining, had sought to prevent the adoption of the instrument. (See also our section “Summary of the arguments made for and against ratification of the Home Work Convention (C177) during the 1996 ILC”).

But the adoption of a Convention by the ILC in no way implies that all ILO Member States are immediately bound by it, even though Conventions decided by the ILC are part of international law. It is up to each State whether or not it signs up to the Convention. Every Convention adopted at an ILC must be put to the vote in national parliaments. Up to now, only four States have ratified the Home Work Convention: Finland (17.06.1998), Ireland (22.04.1999), Albania (24.07.2002) and The Netherlands (31.10.2002). By doing so, they have committed themselves to transpose the international Convention into national law. They are also committed to reporting back to the ILO, every two years, on the measures taken to give effect to the Convention. If employers’ associations or trade unions note any problems with the implementation of Conventions, they can take the matter up directly with the ILO’s monitoring bodies. Among other things, they can lodge formal complaints with the ILO, calling for the application of these Conventions.