The Informal Economy in the News:
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As part of WIEGO’s Urban Policies programme, under the Inclusive Cities project, WIEGO is tracking the impact of two upcoming “mega events” – the World Cup in South Africa and the Commonwealth Games in India – on informal workers, especially construction workers and street vendors. Here are three recent stories: two on the World Cup and street vendors in South Africa, the third on the Commonwealth Games and construction workers in India.
South Africa
May 15, 2010, Irish Times
The World Cup runneth over, but not for all South Africans
Billions have been spent, corporate demands have been met, fans are ready to travel – but will the World Cup benefit South Africa’s poor at all, asks Bill Corcoran in Cape Town...
May 10, 2010, BBC
South Africa World Cup 'just for the rich' by Pumza Fihlani
India
March 22, 2010, BBC
A Commonwealth shame?
Soutik Biswas
Worldwide
Impact of the Global Recession on the Working Poor in the Informal Economy
May 2010
May 11, 2010 - Decent Work Still a Dream for South Africa's Domestic Workers, Davison Makanga, IPS, Cape Town, South Africa
The abuse of domestic workers, the majority of whom are women, is still widespread in South Africa despite calls for the government to intensify the implementation of the domestic workers law.
Vietnam News
May 2, 2010 - Street Vendors Saved Times Square
T-Shirt Vendor Takes On New Persona: Reluctant Hero of Times Square, Michael Schmidt, New York Times
Lance Orton, Times Square Car Bomb Hero: 'See Something, Say Something', Huffington Post
Previous News
| July 2009 - Hillary Clinton Meets With SEWA Members in Mumbai, India |
Read remarks by Secretary Clinton and comments by Ela Bhatt and Jyoti Macwan. Read news stories about Hilary Clinton's visit with SEWA members: July 19, 2009 - Clinton kicks off 3-day visit to India: Meets with rich, poor on education and healthcare. By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post. July 18, 2009 - Hillary meets SEWA volunteers. By the Press Trust of India, Hindustan Times. July 18, 2009 - Seeking Business Allies, Clinton Connects With India’s Billionaires. By Mark Landler, New York Times. |
June 16, 2009 - Santa Ana neighborhood locks up trash to thwart scavengers. By Tony Barboza, Los Angeles Times. They didn't hold up to the bears of Alaska, but they just might be enough to discourage the scavengers of Santa Ana.
June 15, 2009 - DOLE Said Informal Sector, Remittances Keeping RP Economy Afloat - VG Cabuag, Business Mirror
The government said the country’s millions of people in the informal sector, or those people who do not have formal employment in companies, and remittances from overseas Filipino workers are keeping the domestic economy afloat in times of global economic crisis.
June 14, 2009 - The Rights of Domestic Workers. Editorial, New York Times. There are more than 200,000 workplaces in New York State where fundamental labor standards do not apply, not even in theory. These are not sweatshops or salt mines. They are private homes, where housekeepers, nannies and caregivers for the elderly do work as important as it is isolated and unprotected.
June 11, 2009 - Mexicans Turn to Street Economy in Recession - Jason Lange, Reuters
A deep recession in Mexico is pushing hundreds of thousands of workers to take irregular jobs like fixing drains, repairing TVs or selling everything from underwear to furniture on the streets.
June 11, 2009 - Half of Employed in the Informal Sector - Survey - Business World Online
About 17 Million people — half of those employed — are working in the informal sector, according to preliminary results of a survey by the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (BLES) of the Department of Labor and Employment.
June 11, 2009 - Muck and Brass Plates: Entrpreneurs, not scavengers, The Economist.
For more than 20 years Carmen Lasso has scrabbled a living of sorts for herself and her eight children by scavenging at a rubbish dump in Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city. Her life has brought the occasional pleasant surprise, such as the silver ring crowned with a tiny light-blue stone that she gleaned from the trash, and now wears. Another came in April when Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruled that she and tens of thousands of her fellow wastepickers should be officially recognised as “entrepreneurs”.
May 29, 2009 - Informal Sector Suffering: Cambodia's largest sector by employment says it's feeling the downturn, by Hor Hab and May Kunmakara, The Phnom Penh Post.
The main source of Cambodian employment and economic output - its informal economy - is struggling to sustain growth during the global financial crisis, the industry told the Post this week.
May 31, 2009 - Asian Youth Driven to Informal Sector, by Cai U. Ordinario, Business Mirror.
Poor education and training has forced the youth in Asia to enter the informal economy, and now this situation has been exacerbated by the global economic crisis, according to an Asian Development Bank (ADB) officer.
photo: Mary Beth Graves
IMPACT OF THE GLOBAL RECESSION ON THE WORKING POOR IN THE INFORMAL ECONOMY
“More and more workers are competing for their sliver of a shrinking informal economy pie”
The global financial crisis has precipitated a global economic recession with significant impacts on employment – and workers - around the world. Policy makers and the media have begun to focus on the employment effects of the global crisis. But the attention is largely on rising unemployment among formal salaried workers. Read full story
The OECD says that underground workers outnumber those who hold formal jobs.
-- featuring comments from Marty Chen, Lecturer in Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and Coordinator of WIEGO
News Organized by Occupational Groups:
Domestic Workers
Domestic Workers build an international network and campaign for an International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention on Domestic Work - read more
June 14, 2009 - The Rights of Domestic Workers. Editorial, New York Times. There are more than 200,000 workplaces in New York State where fundamental labor standards do not apply, not even in theory. These are not sweatshops or salt mines. They are private homes, where housekeepers, nannies and caregivers for the elderly do work as important as it is isolated and unprotected...
Street Vendors
Apr 07 2009
Trading Markets for Malls
Mail & Guardian Online
Niren Tolsi, Durban, South AfricaAmong the shouts and smells of the early morning market in eThekwini's bustling Warwick Triangle are the ghosts of struggles between marginalised communities and power.
These appear to be echoing again as market and informal traders attempt to oppose the municipality's plans to replace the 99-year-old building with a shopping mall. Read more
Waste Pickers
News stories on the recyclables industry "crash" from around the world:
April 2009:
The Constitutional Court of Colombia rules on a precedent-setting judgment in support of the waste pickers of Cali, Colombia. Read full story.
Trash has Crashed: Downturn in Recyclables Industry
The financial crisis is having effects on all parts of the real economy from car making to waste picking. It is estimated that 1-2 per cent of the urban population of the world lives off collecting and recycling paper, cardboard, plastic, and metal waste. Many of the waste pickers earn only poverty-level incomes; many are women and children.
Since the financial crisis, there has been a significant downturn in the market and prices for recyclable waste around the world. In Belo Horizonte, Brazil, according to Sonia Dias who is doing her PhD on the sector, cardboard waste used to be sold for around half a Brazilian dollar (reais) - it now fetches only 14 cents or, in some areas, as little as one cent.
Across the USA, according to a December 7, 2008 New York Times article, waste is accumulating by the ton in junkyards and warehouses. As the NYT article summarizes the situation: "Trash has crashed". This means that less waste will be sold to industries which recycle the waste and more will go to the landfills. It also means that those who live off picking, sorting, and recycling will lose their livelihoods or see their incomes plummet.
March 13, 2009
Garbage Reclaiming: Legalize it, by Razina Munshi, Financial Mail.
Next time you see someone scavenging through a rubbish bin, think about this: the "garbage reclaimer" is making a living and helping to protect the environment by recycling. Read more...
March 12, 2009
Collector scavenges to survive in Pasadena, by Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times. Rivas is part of the expanding underground economy -- the hundreds of thousands of immigrants in Southern California who clean houses, mow lawns and wash dishes, making money at the margins and paying few if any taxes Read more...
February 2009
Effects of Current Economic Melt down on the Waste Recyclers
Manali Shah, Ahmedabad, India
Ansuya- SEWA’s fortnightly Magazine
“I gave you 10 kgs of waste paper and still you are giving me just Rs. 20! Why? Shouldn’t you be giving me Rs. 40 at Rs. 4/- rate for the waste paper?” And the Scrap shop owner replies sternly, “If you want to take these Rs. 20/- take it or else find another shop to sell you collected waste. The prices of waste has also decreased due to recession, it is not just my decision.”
This is a very regular scene in the scrap shop since last 5 months. Recession has hit the entire world. Wherever we go every body is talking about it and each and every trade is affected by it. And so is the work of these scrap and waste pickers, who actually invest nothing but just their time and labour to earn money. Recession is like a disease, then how can these workers remain unaffected by it? Download report
January 9, 2009
From east to west, a chain collapses
Tania Branigan, in Dongxiaokou, China
The Guardian
Millions to lose their jobs as world's largest importer of waste hit by collapse in demand for packaging. Read more...
December 8, 2008
The Association of Recyclers in Bogota (ARB) provides report on the downturn in the recycling sector in Colombia. Read more...
December 8, 2008
CATAUNIDOS - Network of Commercialization of 7 Waste Pickers' Associations From 7 Municipalities Within the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte. In response to a demand from the Minas Gerais State Waste and Citizenship Forum and the state representatives of the national movement of waste pickers to the Minister of Social Development, the Government of Brazil is using its food security programmes to address the emergency needs of the cooperatives. Read more...
December 7, 2008. New York Times, USA
Back at Junk Value, Recyclables Are Piling Up, by Matt Richtel and Kate Galbraith. Read more...
Nov. 26, 2008. National Post, Canada
Recycling market collapse adds to cities' cash crunch. Read more ...
Nov. 6, 2008. Times Online, USA
Recycling Waste Piles Up as Prices Collapse.Read more...
Oct. 31, 2008. Longford Leader
Chinese recycling market crash hits local firm, by Ailbhe Gillespie.Read more...
Oct. 31, 2008. Irish Times
Recycling market facing collapse, warns body, by Jason Michael.Read more...
Past Events
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Denmark - United Nations Climate Change Conference December 7-18, 2009 In Copenhagen, waste pickers gathered to advocate for alternative funding mechanisms to support fair and just solutions to climate change. |
April 29, 2009 Maintaining Productive Employment during Times of Crisis, A one-day workshop held at the World Bank.