4079 Defending Workers' Rights: Innovations by Informal Worker Movements

Sponsor: Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC)

Presenters:

• Dr. Winnie Mitullah
• Tim Costello
• Johanna Chao-Rittenburg

Prepared for UUA.org by Dan Harper, Reporter; Jone Johnson Lewis, Editor.

Johanna Chao-Rittenburg, the Manager of Social Justice Programs at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC), said that the UUSC is beginning to look at the "informal economy." Workers in the informal economy lack the usual legal and social protections that many of us have come to take for granted. "The informal economy is a growing sector both in the developing world and here in the United States," said Chao-Rittenburg.

"In Africa ... over 80% of people are operating within the informal sector," said Dr. Winnie Mitullah. She is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Nairobi, as well as one of the organizers of Kenya National Alliance of Street Vendors and Informal Traders (KENSAVIT). If that large a percentage of workers falls within the informal sector, she asked, "What is informal about that sector? Or is it the way we contextualize that sector that makes it informal?"

KENSAVIT, organized in March, 2007, in response to research into the informal sector done by Mitullah and others, is designed to help workers be seen as workers regardless of which sector they work in. "Organizing these workers was the highest priority," she said, "so the sector can at least engage in policy dialogue."

Mitullah pointed out that street vendors in her home country, Kenya, are "exposed to harassment and confiscation of goods." KENSAVIT is working to bring individual street vendors into alliances so they can work together. Mitullah pointed out that women street vendors face more difficulties than do men, such as being responsible for babies and children while working, but she emphasized that both male and female street vendors are in precarious situations.

Chao-Rittenburg showed video clips of street vendors in Kenya . Street vendors in the clips spread their goods, such as fruit and vegetables, on cloths laid directly on the street. One video clip showed an interview with a woman who is a street vendor. "I have to wake up very early," she said, in order to take care of her children and then go to vendors to buy the best goods possible to sell on the street. She said she encounters difficulties from the local city council which chases vendors from the streets.

Tim Costello related the concept of the informal economy to the United States and North America . He said that there are many workers in the informal economy in the United States, including day laborers and temp workers. These workers lack long-term relationships with employers, have few benefits, and have little job security.

Costello pointed out that while globalization could be a force for good, in large part at the present moment it is contributing to the growth in the informal sector, both in the United States and abroad. Costello hopes that workers in the informal sector are beginning to organize for more rights. Costello believes that, in the long term, labor rights should be seen as inalienable human rights that are not specific to a country or legal jurisdiction.

Mitullah confirmed that what Costello described as happening in the United States is "the same situation you'll see in any African city."

• Article on this topic by Mitullah
• UUSC blog entry on this topic

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