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INTRODUCTION

Home work is a substantial part of the worldwide informal economy, which is growing rapidly and is characterised by unregulated, and often inhuman, working conditions.

The Home Work Convention’s relationship to other ILO Conventions

The Home Work Convention (C177) was adopted at the ILO’s International Labour Conference in 1996. It is a response to a changing, global world of work, marked by the increasing casualisation of labour. For working people, globalisation often means deregulation and thus massive cuts in pay, social security and occupational health and safety, and in access to training and qualifications. The Home Work Convention applies not just to one sector, but universally, to all homeworkers. It therefore complements other ILO Conventions und guarantees the applicability of core labour standards and other standards to millions of homeworkers. The aim is that homeworkers should be treated equally with other workers, particularly as regards:

(a) the homeworkers' right to establish or join organisations of their own choosing and to participate in the activities of such organisations;

(b) protection against discrimination in employment and occupation;

(c) protection in the field of occupational safety and health;

(d) remuneration;

(e) statutory social security protection;

(f) access to training;

(g) minimum age for admission to employment or work; and

(h) maternity protection.

(Article 4 of the Home Work Convention)

The Home Work Convention is a particularly important one for workers in the informal economy.

In view of globalisation, standards for those engaged in the informal economy are becoming more and more important. Homeworkers account for a major proportion of that informal workforce, particularly in subcontracting for the garment and electrical industries. Although no hard-and-fast statistics are available (see below), it is thought that, for example, in Botswana 77% of all enterprises are located in households. The corresponding figure for Kenya is 32%, for Lesotho 62%, Malawi 54%, South Africa 71%, Swaziland 68% and Zimbabwe 77%. As part of the global division of labour, jobs are hived off. This enables firms to avoid, for example, their responsibility to contribute to these employees’ social security.

C177 is a Convention that provides protection in particular to women in the informal economy.

According to estimates, 90% of all those engaged in home work in Europe (Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands) are women. The same goes for 85% of homeworkers in Argentina’s garment and footwear industry and 90% of those making bidi (small cigars) in India.

Up until the 1970s, the target group for ILO Conventions was male workers in waged employment and without family responsibilities. By the beginning of the 1980s, the ILO was no longer focussing exclusively on dependent employment, but on work in general. This was, for example, reflected in the overhaul of the Employment (Women with Family Responsibilities) Recommendation (1965), which was replaced in 1981 by C156 on Workers with Family Responsibilities (1981).

Homework is essentially done by women. The adoption of Convention No. 177 by the International Labour Conference in 1996 gave recognition to this form of work.

The Home Work Convention (C177) calls for the inclusion of home work in the statistics.

As already indicated, the statistics on home work are in a bad way. The same, incidentally, goes for the whole of the informal sector. It is noticeable that statistics are always lacking on those people who are at the bottom of the social hierarchy. For instance, business and governments have a wealth of statistics available to them on the trade in goods worldwide. And statistical information is vital as a basis for political action. So the importance of collecting data on the number and the extent of atypical forms of employment cannot be overstated.

Article 6 of C177 says: “Appropriate measures shall be taken so that labour statistics include, to the extent possible, home work.”

Visibility – Discussion – Political Action

By its very nature, home work is invisible. From the global perspective, home work is generally badly paid and makes no provision either for an 8-hour day or for social security. The working conditions are determined by the circumstances in which the home workers live. Overheads, such as heating, electricity and rent have to be covered by the homeworkers themselves. They also have to bear the market risks, because they are employed only when the goods that they produce are immediately saleable on the market. Their isolated work situation makes it more difficult for them to organise in order to improve their bargaining power.

As a result of the adoption of the Home Work Convention by the International Labour Conference in 1996,* there were many articles and discussions about home work. But if you look for up-to-date articles on the same topic these days, you will search in vain – even though the situation of homeworkers worldwide has not improved. Quite the reverse.

Ratification would relaunch discussions on this issue.

*For the debate on this, and the voting patterns, see the section: “Summary of the arguments made for and against ratification of the Home Work Convention (C177) during the 1996 ILC.