Global Regions: South-East Asia Philippines:PATAMABA Thailand Indonesia Global South Global North

South-East Asia

Studies by the ILO done in the early 1980s began to reveal the extent of women's homebased work in developing countries. After learning from SEWA's experiences in organising piece-rate workers through legal literacy, workers' campaigns and general organising campaigns, the ILO initiated a programme on homework in three countries of South East Asia: Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia. This programme ran from 1988 to 1996 with the support of the Danish government, and has resulted in many new organisations at the grassroots, a national network in each country, and the beginnings of a regional organisation. Almost all the groups in these three countries are women's NGOs, with very little trade union involvement. Philippines - PATAMABA In the Philippines, the project resulted in the establishment of PATAMABA, the national network for homeworkers which in 1997 has about 5,000 members in many different parts of the country. Organised from a base of local chapters in both rural and urban areas, it has a centre in Manila. PATAMABA runs extensive training and education courses for its members and administers loan schemes for economic livelihood projects. It has been extremely active in advocacy at national and sometimes international levels and works in alliance with many different NGOs and government bodies. It has also experimented with informal social security schemes for its membership and works with a national organisation in this field. It collaborates with a national organisation set up to help small groups develop their markets within the Philippines. Homebased workers in the Philippines do many different kinds of work, both piece-rate and own-account. In Bulacan, for example, many women do machine embroidery on clothes for export. in practice, PATAMABA has worked with homeworkers on issues such as social security, advocacy and alliance building, while concentrating on micro-enterprises in its economic programmes. Many homebased workers have taken advantage of the training and loans available to develop ways of improving their incomes through, for example, making food products and selling them on a local market; making low cost slippers sold widely through retail stores and hotel chains; embroidered shirts sold mainly in Manila; or pig and chicken raising projects in the countryside. PATAMABA is working in alliance with two other groups. KASAMBHAI is an organisation working with agricultural homeworkers. In the countryside there is a new practice of subcontracting by big companies of both raising of animals and crops. Women are provided with small animals or seedlings, as well as feedstuffs or chemicals, and return the grown animals and crops to the company. They are paid for the labour only. This group is relatively new and still exploring ways of organising. The second group working with PATAMABA is an organisation set up to organise the retazo workers in Manila. This group, made up mainly women, makes products such as woven mats, safety globes or cleaning cloths from the waste cloth from garment factories. In 1996, the group known as People's Subsector Development (PSD) had about one thousand members. PSD demonstrates the benfits of collective organisation for groups of poor own-account workers. The retazo workers were able to increase their incomes and obtain increased economic security through buying raw materials more cheaply, instead of buying through a middleman, and by negotiating sale of their products directly to factories or retailers. One of the outcomes of this project in Manila has been an increase in school enrolment among the children of women doing this work. In the first place, women now have a higher income and can afford to pay school costs. Before the PSD found ways to market their products directly, much of the marketing was done by children in the street. A combination of higher incomes and direct marketing has had a positve impact on the ability of the women to send their children to school. top of page Thailand In Thailand, new groups were set up to work with homebased workers and have also come together in a national network with other groups that existed previously. One of the first groups set up in Thailand under the project was a network of homebased workers in villages around Chiangmai. The majority of the women did craft work such as bamboo and rattan weaving; cotton weaving; ceramics; umbrella making; mulberry paper making, etc. Village groups were set up which organised training and savings schemes. Initially the groups were supported by a local NGO but at a later stage became more independent. Now the group has extended its network to include other NGOs and people's organisations working in the North. In the North East of Thailand, a network has been formed among groups working with village women, primarily cotton and silk weavers. The work was initiated by NGOs but with the aim of developing independent people's organisations. Support has been given to the women with techniques in dyeing, spinning and weaving, and particular attention has been paid to environmental issues in the use of natural dyes. The groups market the products through local shops, a catalogue and some export sales. Some of these groups are also looking at social security and insurance plans. Groups in both the North and North East of Thailand have found a growing amount of subcontracting coming to the rural areas with work such as machining garments, assembly of plastic flowers, and electronics. At present both these groups and those in Bangkok are looking at ways of organising the piece-rate homeworkers to decide whether different strategies are needed. In Bangkok, there are groups working with both garment and shoe homeworkers making products for both the national and export market. These groups have taken up issues of minimum wages, social security and laws protecting homeworkers. The network in Thailand is currently consolidating its national base, and hopes to include many new groups in the future. At the national and regional levels, it has worked closely with other NGOs on credit, insurance and marketing, and have lobbied governments on issues related to the ILO Convention, national policy on homework and the informal sector in general. top of page Indonesia In Indonesia, the national network is made up of groups working in different parts of Java and has not yet extended to other islands. The groups cover many different kinds of homebased workers. For example, in Jakarta, workers are engaged in a range of work put out by factories as well as own account sewing and marketing. In Yogyakarta, an NGO is working with women workers in the traditional batik industry and in Malang, another NGO is working with village women doing various kinds of work, mainly on a subcontracted basis. As in the other countries, the groups in Indonesia have developed a two-fold strategy of supporting the women in own-account work through help with training, marketing and product development, and also taking up issues of employment relationships with subcontractors and employers. In Malang, a homeworkers' association has been formed and it is hoped that this can be extended to other parts of Java. Both the homeworkers' association in Malang and the group of batik workers have been developing ways to formalise their relationships with subcontractors and employers They have had some success in developing negotiations with some employers, and some women have for the first time received written contracts of employment. As in the other two countries, the main groups involved have been women's NGOs with little trade union participation. An important part of the project in these three countries was regular meetings held with delegations from all three countries, enabling an exchange of experience and lessons to be drawn out. Delegations and fellowships were also organised to learn from the experience of SEWA in India and to look at the law and practice on homeworking in Japan. top of page

Global South

There are many other examples of work with homebased workers in developing countries. For example, in Bangladesh a number of groups are working with homeworkers. The Bangladesh Women Homeworkers Association organises marketing and product development training for many rural homeworkers, and has also held seminars to lobby governments and raise the visibility of homeworking. Another woman trade unionist is investigating the possibility of working with women homeworkers in the bidi and garment industries. In Pakistan, research has been carried out and there is some interest in lobbying around the ILO Convention. In Nepal, a woman trade union activist has taken up the issue of homework after attending a meeting on the ILO Convention, and has carried out a survey of the range of homework. In many countries, there are small groups working with own account women workers on income-generating projects or in cooperatives of different kinds. In Mexico, for example, Maya Chuy is working with Mayan women doing traditional embroidery, training them in techniques and quality and providing marketing support. In other countries, particularly Latin America, there is already significant research on the widespread nature of industrial subcontracting and the increase in homework. In Turkey, homebased work is prevalent in traditional work such as carpets or embroidery, as well as in industries such as textiles, garments and footwear - and often linked to companies in Europe. A group of women in Istanbul have recently taken the initiative to estalish a union for women working in the informal sector. In North Africa, it is already known that similar patterns exist, with both traditional textile work being done by women at home as well as work being put out by factories. top of page

Global North

At the same time as many homework organisations were developing in the South, there was a growing awareness of the extent of homework and the need to organise homeworkers in the countries of the North. In Madeira, an autonomous island region of Portugal, there is a trade union which has been organising thousands of homeworkers in the embroidery industry for over twenty years. The embroidery industry on the island is world famous and plays an important part in the island's economy, with at least one fifth of the active population earning a living from it. The embroidery is all hand-done by women working at home, many of them in rural areas. However, the industry is centralised and the work comes from factories based in the capital, Funchal, which control designs and marketing. The union currently has about 8,000 members and has over the years won significant gains, partly at the regional level and partly through the national government in Lisbon. The union fought for recognition and registration of homeworkers through the social security system; it has won annual pay increases but its major gains have been in relation to pension and unemployment rights. In Italy, trade unions have organised homeworkers in some regions. As in Madeira, the unions fought for legal protection for homeworkers and then used this as a basis for organising. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland there are strong laws on homework but little active organisation at the grassroots. As in the South, much of the work around homework in the North has been done by women's NGOs, sometimes together with trade unions. In Britain, for example, since the early 1980s there have been local projects working with homeworkers. These projects have been based on providing a support and advice network for homeworkers and have succeeded in raising the issue of homework, and through contact with homeworkers, finding out about chains of subcontracting and employers. The project's national work is coordinated through a national NGO which has advocated bringing in a new law for homeworkers. A similar strategy was developed by the Women's Union in the Netherlands, to make contact with homeworkers and research its extent and the problems associated with it. Over the last five years, a network has developed among NGOs and women trade unionists working with homeworkers in the European Union. It has lobbied at the European level for increased visibility and more protection for homeworkers. Homeworking groups in Europe have worked closely with researchers around the extent and nature of homework and with the growing consumer lobby working on voluntary codes of practice, or fair trade policies, in relation to subcontracting chains, particularly in the fashion industry. In the 1990s this has become a growing movement, as in North America and Australia, which is likely to have an impact on companies' policies towards employment of homeworkers. In North America, work around homework has been confined to Toronto. In Canada, as in the USA, the clothing union strongly supports the existing ban on homework in women's fashion clothing - the most common sector for homework. In Toronto, however, the clothing union took up the issue of homework in the late 1980s, with the growing decentralisation of production which was moving either abroad to Asia or Central America, or to subcontracting chains within Canada. The union set up a homeworkers' association whose members are mainly Chinese women doing garment homework. The strategy adopted was threefold: organising homeworkers, working for legal reform, and campaigning in a broad coalition around consumer issues and in order to publicise the issue of homeworking. The union was successful in having important legal changes made to ensure that homeworkers were covered by the law, and through the organising ensured that women were in a position to earn the legal minimum and sue their employers for underpayments. A range of activities have been organised with homeworkers, from leadership and sewing training to family activities and fund-raising events. The union has also focused some of its campaign work on major retailers whose garments were made by homeworkers at illegal wages, with such tactics as their "sweatshop fashion show". Similarly in Australia, the clothing union fought for homeworkers rights when they saw the shift in clothing production from large factories to subcontracting chains and homework that took palce in the 1980s. On the basis of winning these reforms, the union then organised a major information campaign publicising the law in many different minority languages in print and on the radio. Through this campaign, they made contact with many homeworkers and collected information about their pay, work conditions, and the companies for whom they were producing. Most recently the union has launched a consumer campaign, including a broad coalition of church and community groups, which has been successful in persuading large numbers of retailers to sign a code of good practices monitored by the union. The Australian campaign has been unique in that it specifically targeted homework within its own country. In Japan, there have been a number of different organisations working with homeworkers. Some of these are organised in the form of trade unions, such as the Tokyo based union that organises homeworkers in the shoe industry - who unusually are men. In other parts of Japan, there are community based associations of homeworkers who act as subcontractors. They are responsible for quality control and for negotiating contracts with employers. They have small offices, with a van for delivery of the work to homeworkers. Recent trends in Japan indicate a decline in manufacturing homework and a big increase in telehomework. top of page