Cooperatives have opened the way for many workers in informal employment to build a collective identity as workers and to engage in successful collective struggles for recognition and rights.
Despite considerable progress made by the movement of workers in informal employment in international policy spaces like the International Labour Organization, research continues to show that the activities of workers in informal employment are largely ignored or unsupported by policymakers. And many workers have been criminalized by governments – some directly, and others through restrictive policies. For example, waste pickers in Buenos Aires, Argentina, were fined over USD600 for searching for recyclable materials in garbage containers; in African cities including Johannesburg and Accra, street vendors have been evicted from their workplaces in public space. This systemic discrimination and stigmatization can cause workers to devalue the work they do. In the case of sectors like home-based workers, it can mean workers do not perceive what they do as work or view themselves as workers.
Cooperatives help workers build collective identity and fight for formal recognition
Organizing workers in informal employment often starts with change at the individual level, strengthening their understanding that the work they do is actual work and that it has social and economic value. As workers gain knowledge of their labour and human rights and the collective challenges their sector or group faces, a collective identity forms with a sense of shared purpose that can lead to coordinated action. This collective power is what cooperatives draw on to negotiate with government at different levels, as well as with labour institutions and others.
A basic demand from many workers in informal employment is to gain formal recognition as workers. Formal recognition can be extended to both individuals and organizations. For individual workers, formal recognition can refer to a process whereby the scope of labour codes or labour laws are expanded to include previously excluded sectors. It can also occur when the rights of workers in the informal economy are recognized and protected through social, economic or municipal policies (for example, solid waste management policies that outline waste pickers’ rights, and municipal regulations that promote access to public space for street vendors). At the organizational level, registering as social and solidarity economy (SSE) entities allows cooperatives to operate under specific legal frameworks and demand recognition from state institutions.
Waste picker movements in Brazil and Colombia provide examples where years of organizing and advocacy by cooperatives and other SSE entities have helped workers gain formal recognition. This has provided a foundation to fight for labour and other rights, such as social protection.
Waste pickers in Colombia achieve formal recognition and payment for services
The case of waste pickers in Colombia, where cooperatives have linked waste pickers’ work to a legal framework that recognizes them as formal actors in the waste management chain, shows what decades of collective work for a common cause can achieve.
More than 15,000 waste pickers – from 45 cooperatives and other local organizations grouped into five regional structures within the country – belong to the National Association of Waste Pickers (Asociación Nacional de Recicladores, ANR).
In the face of public policies that favoured a privatized waste management model and criminalized waste pickers’ recovery and recycling activities, organized waste pickers defended their right to work and fought for their inclusion in the waste management system.
Starting in the early 1990s, the ANR led a legal and political strategy that resulted in more than seven Constitutional Court rulings recognizing waste pickers as providers of the public sanitation service in recycling, and ordering their formal inclusion and payment as service providers within the official waste management system.
Through this model, more than 32,000 waste pickers across 94 municipalities provide public services. Their organizations are the channel for their payments. In many municipalities, cooperatives and other SSE associations are now directly responsible for operating and managing routes and processes for recovering recyclable materials.
Waste pickers played a critical role in building the institutional agreements that ensure their recognition. Their organizations negotiated the inclusion criteria, operational standards and payment mechanisms and are involved in the formulation and implementation of public policies. For example, waste picker organizations participated in the development of waste picker censuses and succeeded in getting the government to grant them exclusivity in the collection of recyclable waste.
Cooperatives in Brazil enable waste pickers to influence government
In Brazil, waste picker cooperatives organize the day-to-day collecting, sorting and selling of recyclables. They also help their members recognize themselves as workers with an awareness that recycling is an essential environmental service. This identity is built both through everyday practice – working together, sharing income, making decisions in assemblies – and through their belonging to the National Movement of Waste Pickers of Recyclable Materials (Movimento Nacional dos Catadores de Materiais Recicláveis, MNCR).
Through the MNCR, cooperatives serve as the organizational base for negotiating with the government at all levels – in designing public policies, formalizing payment for recycling services, and drawing up agreements with municipalities to manage waste programmes.
The MNCR has about 85,000 members from 600 cooperatives and other SSE entities. It advocated that waste picking be included as an occupation in the Brazilian Classification of Occupations in 2002, enabling the inclusion of waste pickers in censuses. It also led the advocacy efforts that culminated in the approval of the national solid waste policy in 2010, which gives waste pickers legal recognition as essential actors in the recycling chain.
More recently, the MNCR helped negotiate with industries to integrate cooperatives in reverse logistics systems and extended producer responsibility schemes, thus securing the inclusion of waste pickers in environmental and social initiatives. More than 5,000 waste pickers from about 300 cooperatives across Brazil now receive payment as a result.
In his book, “Do lixo a Bixo”, Brazilian waste picker leader Alex Cardoso describes how joining collective organizing as a cooperative member has given him a profound sense of belonging. Through coordinated political action, both his own work and that of the collective have gained relevance, legitimacy and dignity, he says, adding that this cooperation has enabled waste pickers to influence the national government and gain representation in international arenas such as the International Labour Organization.
This is the third blog in a series to mark the United Nations Year of the Cooperative, where WIEGO highlights the ways in which SSE organizations support workers in informal employment.