A Rights-based Approach to Formalization: Transformative Change through Collective Bargaining
The persistence of widespread informality indicates that it is a structural feature of every economy, particularly in developing countries. Informal work is strongly associated with decent-work deficits, both reflecting and reinforcing poverty and inequality. WIEGO’s Working Paper No. 50 advances a rights‑based approach to formalization, grounded in a political economy understanding of the law. This approach highlights how states’ failure to reconstruct their labour laws to extend collective bargaining rights to all workers mediates political and economic relationships in ways that contribute to the persistence of informality.
To advance thinking on the legislative innovation needed to change this, the authors put forward two proposals for how labour law might be reformed, drawing on lessons from initiatives by organizations of informal own‑account workers that have engaged in collective negotiations to improve working conditions.
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