Usage Statistics

HOME WORK – A Global Overview

Common perceptions of home work usually embody two contrasting views – one pessimistic and the other optimistic. The first focuses on monotonous, badly paid tasks, a lack of social security and often the involvement of child labour. The upbeat view is that home work results from developments in communications, which give (qualified) workers the opportunity to benefit from increased flexibility by working from home. Each view is both true and false. Home work has many different faces.

Categories of home work:

Here is a list of jobs in which home work is found:

• Production and Assembly: sewing, packing, routine assembly, manufacture of tobacco products
• Artisan Production: weaving, basket-making, embroidery, carpet-making
• Personal Services: laundry, beautician and barber, shoe repair, dressmaking, lodging, catering
• Clerical Work: typing, data processing, telemarketing, book-keeping, accounting, call centre telephonists
• Professional Work: tax accounting, legal advising, design consulting, computer programming, writing, engineering, architectural, medical services.

This list is by no means exhaustive, but it does give some idea of the range of tasks performed as home work.

What is home work?

Let us clarify a little what the term “home work” means, as used in Convention 177: home work does not include the paid or unpaid performance of domestic tasks. Or to put it positively: home work is an activity “…which results in a product or service as specified by the employer...” and which is performed for payment in premises of the home worker’s choice (usually the person’s home). However, given the often fluid transitions within home work, it is difficult to define and delimit, and therefore to measure.

Here is an attempt by the ILO to define the limits (ILO) :

However, this classification gives no indication of the quality of working conditions and pay, nor of the type of social security provided. In the developing countries, it may be assumed that most jobs performed at home are among those for which pay is lowest, and that there is no access to social security systems, regardless of status. The overwhelming majority of homeworkers are women, who are among the worst paid workers worldwide.

Other characteristics of home work are that it is “invisible”, that the jobs are isolated, and that homeworkers are usually unorganised and are thus in a weak bargaining position vis-à-vis the employers.

How many homeworkers are there?

It seems to be generally agreed that the trend worldwide is towards more home work, as well as a rise in the number of people working within unregistered employment relationships. Collecting statistical data on this sector is a difficult undertaking, as home work relationships are often not registered.

To give some idea of the extent of home work worldwide, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has published the following statistics:

Home-Based Workers in Fourteen Developing Countries: Number, Share of Non-Agricultural Employment, Porportion Women :

Organisations representing homeworkers:

Despite the immense difficulties raised by the particular conditions in which home work takes place, homeworkers in some countries have organised to demand and secure minimum standards for their work. Either they are organised directly within the appropriate sectoral union, as is the case in Germany, or the unions have set up specific homeworkers’ unions (as, for example, in Canada) or else the homeworkers have created organisations of their own, because they do not feel that they are represented by the official unions (e.g. in India). Below, we give some examples of organisations that have homeworkers in membership:

Europe

Germany: mainly IG Metall, but also IG BCE, ver.di and others.
UK: various local associations, including the National Group on Homeworking (NGH)
Italy: Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro/Federazione Italiana Lavoratori
Tessili et Abbigliamento (CGIL/FILTEA)
Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro/Nuove Identità di Lavoro
(CGIL/NidiL)
Portugal: the embroiderers’ union STIBTTA, Madeira.

Asia

HomeNet South East Asia (currently HomeNet Philippines, HomeNet Asia, Bangkok, Thailand).
HomeNet South Asia (currently India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka).
SEWA (Self Employed Women’s Association), Ahmedabad, India.

North America

Canada: Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE)

South America

Argentina: Sindicato Obrero de la Industria del Vestido y Afines (SOIVA);
Unión de Trabajadores de la Industria del Calzado de la República
Argentina (UTICRA)

Australia: Textile Clothing and Footwear Union (TCFU), which also plays an active part in the “Fair Wear” alliance.

Here is a selection of international organisations that have homeworkers’ organisations in affiliation and/or make home work a major focus of their activities:

ITGLWF – International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation (www.itglwf.org)
IUF – International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (www.iuf.org)
Homeworkers Worldwide (www.homeworkersww.org.uk/);
CCC – Clean Clothes Campaign (www.cleanclothes.org/);
Fair Wear Australia (www.fairwear.org.au/engine.php);
WIEGO – Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (www.wiego.org);
GLI – Global Labour Institute (www.global-labour.org)