OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

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• OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY
• FOR INFORMAL WORKERS
• Social Protection in Africa
• Sharing Experiences on the Informal Economy
• EC AU Commission Capacity Building Workshop
• 10-11 March 2011, Nairobi, Kenya.
• Masuma Mamdani
• IHI

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WIEGO

• A global research and advocacy network, working
  in some 40 countries, promoting and advancing the
  interests of poorer informal workers, especially
  women
• Informal work is normal and not residual
• Does NOT represent MBOs, works with, builds
  strengthens networks of informal worker
  organisations (MBOs).
• Gives MBOs visibility, recognition and validity

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EXPANDED DEFINITION OF THE INFORMAL ECONOMY (IE)

• IE - the diversified set of economic activities,
  enterprises, and workers that are not regulated
  or protected by the state.
• IE (or informal employment) includes
• Self-employment in informal enterprises
  self-employed persons in small unregistered or
  unincorporated enterprises, including
• employers
• own account operators
• unpaid contributing family workers
• Wage employment in informal jobs wage workers
  without social protection through their work who
  are employed by formal or informal firms (and
  their contractors), by households, or by no fixed
  employer, including
• non-standard employees of informal enterprises
• non-standard employees of formal enterprises
• casual or day labourers
• industrial outworkers (also called homeworkers)
• Notes
• 1. WIEGO promoted this expanded definition in
  collaboration with the ILO and the International
  Expert Group on Informal Sector
• Statistics (the Delhi Group) it was
  endorsed by the International Conference of
  Labour Statisticians (ICLS) in 2003
• 2. T he elements of this expanded definition that
  were not included in the earlier ICLS 1993
  definition of informal sector are in italics

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Informal Sector employment and production that
takes place in small, unincorporated and
unregistered enterprises ((ICLS 1993) . Informal
Employment broader definition that includes
informal employment inside and outside informal
enterprises (whether carried out for formal
sector enterprises or households (ICLS 2003)
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SEGMENTED LABOR MARKETS/EMPLOYMENT STRUCTURES

• What do we mean by segmentation?
• Constraints exist which prevent individuals from
  moving into better employment opportunities (or
  improving the quality of existing employment)
• What causes segmentation?
• Discrimination, social norms, unequal
  wealth/assets, unpaid care responsibilities, lack
  of credit, lack of public goods/services, and
  more, etc
• Why does segmentation matter?
• Reinforces existing patterns of poverty and
  social exclusion.
• Issue of equity gender, racial, caste
  segmentation.
• Issue of basic rights and the choices available
  to individuals.
• In summary a social justice issue

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SEGMENTATION OF THE INFORMAL ECONOMY BY SEX,
AVERAGE EARNINGS, AND POVERTY RISK
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WORKING POOR IN THE INFORMAL ECONOMY

• In Unregulated Factories
• garment makers
• shoe makers
• In Small Workshops
• scrap metal recyclers
• shoe makers
• weavers
• garment makers and embroiderers
• paper-bag makers
• On Streets or In Open Spaces
• street vendors
• push-cart vendors
• garbage collectors
• roadside barbers
• construction workers
• In Fields, Pastures, and Forests

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EMPLOYMENT, INFORMALITY, POVERTY

• Employment - the most important way in which the
  benefits of growth can be shared.
• Most of the worlds poor especially in
  developing countries are working.
• Informal rather than formal employment is on the
  rise.
• The vast majority of the working poor those who
  earn less than US 1 per day - earn their living
  in the informal economy where
• average earnings are low
• risks are high
• Poverty reduction is not possible without
• Increasing formal employment opportunities AND
• Increasing the assets and earnings AND
• reducing the risks of those who work in the
  informal economy.

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INSTITUTIONAL REFORMS

• There is a need to address the following
• Institutional mismatch existing means of legal
  and social protections vs. reality of work today
• Policy biases Power imbalances in favor of
  capital vs. labor larger firms vs. micro firms
  formal labor vs. informal labor
• Downloading of risks from lead firms -gt
  suppliers -gt intermediaries -gt dependent workers
  and producers at the bottom of production and
  distribution chains

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POLICY AND INSTITUTIONAL REFORM THROUGH
DIALOGUE AND NEGOTIATION

• Key stakeholders government, private sector,
  civil society (trade unions MBOs of working
  poor NGOs working on labor and employment
  issues)
• Tripartite dialogues and negotiations should
  include MBOs of working poor as well as trade
  unions, employer associations, and government
• Multi-partite initiatives initiatives involving
  multiple relevant stakeholders such as Fair
  Trade and Ethical Trade initiatives and the
  Global Compact - should be encouraged and
  supported
• Multi-partite reform processes policy and legal
  reform processes should involve all relevant
  stakeholders including representatives of MBOs of
  the working poor

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Social Protection The Context

• Vast majority of poor who work informally
• precarious high risk exposure
• have no social security coverage to protect
  against short term risks or life-time
  contingencies
• cannot afford private insurance, have little
  access to social insurance
• Poorer people live and work in poor communities,
  where it is hard to insure against risk
• In developing countries
• state systems of social insurance do not target
  informal workers, wage employed or self-employed
• state systems of social assistance for poorer and
  vulnerable people do not target able bodied
  people of working age

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SOCIAL PROTECTION DIFFERENT STRATEGIES FOR
DIFFERENT SECTORS

• Evidence from a) value chain research and b) risk
  analysis of place of work and c) analyses of
  existing social protection schemes
• different elements of the welfare mix may be
  more or less appropriate for different types of
  workers

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SOCIAL PROTECTION DIFFERENT STRATEGIES FOR
DIFFERENT SECTORS

• Street and market vendors
• Focus on local government (not national
  government) policies
• Encourage infrastructural service delivery to
  reduce risk AND increase productivity AND protect
  both informal workers and the public

• Domestic workers
• more potential for integrating into existing
  labour policy and legislation in line with
  extend social protection campaign

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SOCIAL PROTECTION DIFFERENT STRATEGIES FOR
DIFFERENT SECTORS

• Industrial outworkers
• Encourage infrastructural delivery to private
  homes
• Extend employer/ owner-of-capital insurance to
  include private homes
• Integrate social protection for informal workers
  into trade agreements/ codes of conduct

• Waste-pickers
• negotiate with municipalities/private sector for
  provision of safety equipment and reduction of
  hazards at the place of work
• provide access for workers to local
  government/private sector social provision
  health services and health insurance, training
  courses, educational bursaries

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MAINSTREAMING SOCIAL PROTECTION FOR INFORMAL
WORKERS THE CASE OF OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND
SAFETY (OHS)

• VISION
• The integration of the working conditions and
  health status of poorer informal workers, and
• The inclusion of informal work places, into the
  discipline and practice of occupational health
  and safety

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OHS FOR INFORMAL WORKERS

• How to re-think OHS as a more inclusive
  discipline, for different types of informal
  workers?
• What institutional reform would be necessary at
  national and local government level - to reach
  more workers?
• How can informal workers be integrated in
  inclusive and sustainable platforms for
  negotiation and policy development?

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OHS FOR INFORMAL WORKERS THE VISION - HOW?

• Voice Support/assist MBOs of informal workers in
  shaping focused demands for OHS interventions and
  in negotiating for policy change and
  implementation
• Visibility Integrate module on OHS for informal
  workers into Labour Force Surveys improve the
  country-based statistics on occupational hazards
  and injuries to regulating bodies such as the ILO
• Validity Modify legal and institutional barriers
  to the inclusion of informal workers develop a
  model for expanded and integrated curriculum for
  OHS for informal workers into mainstream public
  health schools

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OHS PROGRAMME DESIGN

• Africa (Ghana, Tanzania), Asia (two sites in
  India), Latin America Brazil, Peru
• Focus on different occupational groups
  including street vendors, homebased workers,
  informal recycling workers, domestic workers,
  agricultural workers, seaweed farmers

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RESEARCH

• Understanding the Context
• Paper 1 Size and Shape of the Informal Economy
• Paper 2 Institutional Mapping and Analysis
• Participatory research on risks and hazards with
  MBOs
• Focus groups discussions, mobility mapping, time
  and motion studies, household/ enterprise
  interviews, photography, health checklists

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IMPROVING DATA ABOUT RISKS AND HAZARDS IN
INFORMAL WORK

• Improved statistics on occupational injury and
  disease for informal workers
• Work with National Statistics Bodies
• Labour force survey modules pilot in two
  countries
• Identify gaps in procedures for accident
  reporting

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TANZANIA DATA ON OCCUPATIONAL INJURIES

• Available data on occupational injuries are
  hugely underestimated
• Reporting is limited to the workers covered by
  the system- those largely working in the formal
  sector - does not include most of those working
  in the informal sector, as well as in the
  agricultural sector

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TANZANIA DATA SYSTEMS

• Opportunities for strengthening the routine
  collection and monitoring of progress, structure
  and scale of the informal economy as well as
  pertinent OHS indicators (through targeted (and
  nested) questions in periodic surveys (HBS, LFS,
  DHS, census) at national, as well as at
  district/council level?
• Coordination of ongoing data collection
  activities?
• Strengthening the role of Municipalities or
  Councils at the Local Government (LG) level in
  the management of OHS - facilitate information as
  well as provide national and local decision
  makers with insights into the complexity of OHS
  affairs.

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• Limited capacity to enforce the many laws and
  regulations and ensure HS at the workplace few
  inspectors, lack of other trained staff,
  transport facilities and other essential
  resource around 4,000 workplaces are registered
  out of an estimated total of 50,000 workplaces in
  mainland Tanzania
• Environmental hazards are widespread, especially
  in the informal sector and in small and
  medium-sized companies where the majority of the
  work force is employed.
• Workers are often unaware about OHS issues and
  remain unprotected from occupational accidents
  and diseases

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Tanzania

• Existing labour laws are designed to cover most
  Tanzanian workers, including many of those in the
  informal economy. However, informal sector
  workers on the whole, still tend not to benefit
  from the legislation.
• Need to enhance the implementation of the labour
  laws - in the formal and the informal economy gt
  calls for an effective labour administration and
  inspection service.

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TANZANIA

• Many protective laws, policies, programmes
  projects,
• Involving multiple state and non-state actors
• Scattered, ill-coordinated and the general impact
  of these has been limited.
• It is therefore not just about building new
  systems and new programmes. It is also about
  assessing the effectiveness or rather weaknesses
  of existing systems and programmes.
• The issue is not always of more money but better
  use of available resources

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SURVEY OF OHS SYSTEMS IN EA

• Legislation and Government authorities are
  relatively well developed, the implementation of
  legislation is weak, and the legal and
  particularly practical coverage of services is
  currently low.
• Regulations may stipulate comprehensive content
  for services, the practical content may often be
  very narrow, including only health examinations
  and curative general health services, based on
  the public health system.
• Preventive activities are under-developed with
  weak systems for recognition and registration of
  occupational diseases and injuries.
• There are substantial needs to develop financial
  systems for OHS by obligating employers to invest
  more in OHS and to organize alternative public
  service provision opportunities for the informal
  sector, agriculture and the self-employed.
• (Rantanen and Lehtinen, 2010)

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POOR OPERATORS LACK INCENTIVE TO MAINTAIN CLEAN
WORKING ENVIRONMENTS

• Street Net Ghana Alliance survey of 20 chop bars
  (informal eating establishment)
• Bar operators on average spent around US 1,142
  annually on water, refuse removal, use of
  toilets, cleaning equipment, employee health
  certificates fire fighting equipment
• How to make OHS more affordable for informal
  businesses?

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GHANA TANZANIA INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS

• Local Government (LG) is an important player in
  determining workplace conditions, with specific
  links to both formal and informal sector
  employments, and administration related issues
• LG is not effective in maintaining an acceptable
  work environment
• General lack of resources
• Institutional Issues

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OHS

• Multi-disciplinary and inter-sectoral- addressed
  by a range of legislation under different
  departments / ministries and organisations.

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GHANA TANZANIA INSTITUTIONAL PROBLEMS OF LOCAL
GOVERNMENT

• Lack of horizontal coordination between local
  government departments that have jurisdiction
  over various aspects of health and safety
• Problematic vertical alignments between LG and
  national govt
• Lack of institutionalised communication between
  LG and informal workers
• Poor dissemination of public information (laws,
  policies, regulations, by-laws)
• Insufficient regulation of privatised services

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INTERVENTIONS PREVENTION OF RISKS, IMPROVING
WORK CONDITIONS

• Participatory health screenings on morbidity and
  risk
• Development of prototypes of improved equipment
• Assessment of impact of new/ modified equipment
• Exchanging good practices between countries and
  between national, regional and international
  organisations networks of informal workers

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Sharing the learning

• Diagnostic workshops between workers and those
  who control OHS
• Multiple stakeholder policy dialogue
• Integrating the learning into MBO planning and
  strategy
• Development of accessible materials on organising
  around OHS issues
• Regional meetings to share the learning
• Papers at international policy conferences
• Articles in influential journals
• Influence on OHS curriculum

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TOWARDS SUSTAINED INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE KEY
ENABLING CONDITIONS

• Representative Voice
• more and stronger organizations of the working
  poor in the informal economy
• representation of such organizations in relevant
  policy-making, rule-setting, and collective
  bargaining institutions and processes at all
  levels
• Official Visibility
• improved labor force and other economic
  statistics that measure all economic units and
  workers - including their earnings contribution
  to GDP
• analysis and dissemination of these data to
  policy-makers, advocates of informal workers, and
  organizations of working poor in informal economy
• research on the characteristics and situation of
  informal workers
• documentation of promising examples of policy,
  regulator, legal, and programmatic interventions
  in support of informal workers
• Legal and Policy Validity
• legal identity and rights of informal workers as
  workers, asset holders, and citizens
• legal recognition of the member-based
  organizations of informal workers
• legal empowerment through inclusive legal and
  policy reform processes and appropriate legal and
  policy reforms
• A LONG TERM PROCESS

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Women in Informal EmploymentGlobalising and
Organising1

• www.wiego.org