How worker networks influence international labour standards and turn them into reality

For more than 30 years, WIEGO has supported networks of workers in informal employment to shape international labour law at the International Labour Conference (ILC).

The ILC is hosted by the International Labour Organization (ILO). Its mission is to bring together governments, employers and workers of its 187 Member States to set international labour standards, and develop policies and programmes that promote decent work and enhance social protection.

Networks of workers in informal employment have achieved landmark recommendations and conventions at the conference, and overcome significant obstacles to their participation and representation.

These collective efforts have resulted in major wins including: C189, the Domestic Workers Convention; R204, the Recommendation on the Transition from the Informal to the Formal Economy; and C190, the Violence and Harassment Convention. And this year, the ILO adopted C193 – a ground breaking international labour standard which recognizes the rights to safety, fair pay and social security for all platform workers.

An ILO Convention is a legally binding international treaty that may be ratified by ILO member states. A Recommendation is a non-binding guideline, and may supplement a convention by providing more details.

Each year informal economy worker organizations have attended, they have demanded recognition of their role as legitimate workers, highlighted their demands and told their stories through participation in the Workers Group. Obtaining this legitimacy has been a year’s long and hard-fought struggle which involved careful strategy and alliance-building.

Sonia George, Executive Committee member of the International Domestic Workers Federation and National Vice President of SEWA, delivers speech during discussions on formalization at the 113th International Labour Conference in Geneva, June 2025.

Informal economy excluded from early deliberations

One of WIEGO’s first achievements in the fight for the rights of workers in informal employment was to secure their representation at the ILC.

The tripartite structure of the ILC gives governments, employers and workers a space to discuss and negotiate employment, working conditions and social protection. Within this structure, the obvious space for worker organizations in the informal economy is in the Workers Group.

The Workers Group serves to represent the interests of trade unions and working people globally, ensuring that workers’ voices shape global labour policies.

But although the informal economy was recognized by the ILO in the 1970s, until the recent past, the Workers Group was made up of trade union delegates representing workers in employer-employee relationships. Up until about 2019, issues related to working conditions in the informal economy were either not a part of regular ILC discussions or were being discussed by others.

Early on, WIEGO recognized the importance of working towards the recognition of workers in informal employment as a legitimate part of the labour force and therefore entitled to representation and speaking rights at the ILC.

A caucus meeting during the 2002 International Labour Conference Discussion on Decent Work and the Informal Economy. WIEGO worked with a coalition of allies to claim space for workers in the informal economy. Photo credit: Marty Chen

Opening the doors of the Palais des Nations to the informal economy

WIEGO started supporting Conference delegations in 2002, when the ILC set to focus on decent work in the informal economy.

Pat Horn, founding International Coordinator and now Advisor for StreetNet International and a long-time advocate for street vendors, said that the task was to claim space for workers in the informal economy.

“We didn’t have a clear space at the ILC. Our approach was to navigate, find allies from within organized labour and governments,” she said.

Karin Pape, WIEGO’s former Deputy Director of the Organization & Representation Programme, said the early years of trying to bring together trade unions and workers in informal employment were difficult.

“I was really shocked… that was war,” she said.

Despite the challenges, 2002 marked a turning point for movements of workers in informal employment as the ILC adopted the Resolution and Conclusions on Decent Work and the Informal Economy.

This Resolution recognized workers in the informal economy, including wage earners and own account workers, as workers with the same rights to decent work as other workers.

Alliance-building and organizing to gaining recognition and legitimacy

After the 2002 ILC, WIEGO and its membership-based organization (MBO) partners strategized to integrate workers in informal employment into the Workers Group and national trade unions, so that their yearly presence in Geneva was both anticipated and accepted.

This involved building alliances with trade unions, engaging with the ILO and supporting organizing efforts in the informal economy.

Getting informal economy workers into national trade unions was essential as it would afford the possibility to attend the Conference as part of the official trade union delegation, enabling them to have speaking and voting rights.

Since WIEGO is recognized only as an observer at the ILC, WIEGO delegates do not have the same speaking and voting rights as official worker delegates.

Myrtle Witbooi, Founding President of the International Domestic Workers Federation participates in a demonstration during the 2014 ILC Discussion on Formalizing the Informal Economy. Photo credit: Jill Shenker

Connections in trade unions

Through persistent engagement with national trade unions, the late Myrtle Witbooi, General Secretary of the South African Domestic Service and Allied Workers Union (SADSAWU) and President of the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF), and Nohra Padilla, co-founder of the Asociacion de Recicladores de Bogota (ARB), have participated as a part of a national delegation respectively for South Africa and Colombia.

Given their special status, they were key figures in the WIEGO-led delegation, as they had the responsibility of communicating the WIEGO agenda during sessions. Through this process, other worker leaders learned the importance of getting involved in unions and creating alliances with formal workers.

At the same time, a broader strategy has been simply to expand representation of workers in informal employment and grassroots organizations. WIEGO has been working towards these goals, as the more workers that are organized, the easier it is to get them recognized and integrated into the national unions or to form their own.

Early and careful collaboration and contact with the ILO, International Trade Union Confederation and the ILO’s Bureau for Workers’ Activities (ACTRAV) have all contributed to improved recognition of workers in informal employment. Regular meetings and consultations with these partners provided spaces to share workers’ positions and foster alignment.

Jane Barrett, WIEGO’s former director of the Organization and Representation Programme, said there was a significant shift in the perception of workers in informal employment.

“Between R204 [adopted in 2015] and C190 [adopted in 2019], recognition and respect for informal workers has grown exponentially.”

WIEGO’s strategies of trade union activism and engagement with the ILO coupled with assembling the necessary funds to support worker-led delegations at the ILC has resulted in the integration of informal workers into the Workers Group.

Shared resources, networks and demands support collective action

WIEGO’s level of engagement and support to workers’ organizations has evolved over the years at the ILC. The early years were characterized by a network of WIEGO affiliates attending the ILC, sometimes with the logistical and financial support of WIEGO, but not as a WIEGO-led delegation.

This changed in 2009, after WIEGO received official observer status at the ILC, and was finally able to support its own official delegation. After 2009, the size and composition of the WIEGO-led delegation and the subsequent preparations depended on if the agenda was relevant for workers in the informal economy, and if so, which sectors would be most impacted.

In addition to providing financial resources to enable workers to attend, WIEGO has provided behind-the-scenes technical support to worker organizations before, during and after the ILC.

This often starts with preparing worker delegations: helping them understand the texts to be negotiated and how to engage in the ILO process. Given that MBOs across sectors and regions can have different concerns, the process of building consensus and solidarity for each ILC, often through a shared platform of demands or position statement, is essential.

This consensus is then carried through into daily caucus meetings during the Conference where negotiating strategies are discussed. Throughout, WIEGO provides translation, interpretation and strategic communications as needed to the delegation.

Poonsap Tulaphan (centre left) participates in a regional preparatory workshop to develop a WIEGO Network platform of demands for the 2014 Discussion on Formalizing the Informal Economy alongside other worker representatives across the region.

Guide to what you will face at the ILC

Poonsap Tulaphan, the leader of HomeNet Thailand, attended the ILC in 2015 and explains WIEGO’s process of collating demands, and orienting worker organizations throughout the Conference.

“They (WIEGO) collect all the demands, simplify… for me it is very exciting, the process, WIEGO is very good in orienting you, what you will face, what you will see at the ILC.”

Lorraine Sibanda, the President of StreetNet International and the Zimbabwe Chamber of Informal Economy Associations (ZCIEA), explains how WIEGO supported membership-based organizations to gather their demands and tell their own stories in their own words.

“WIEGO wants the workers to tell the stories themselves…they compile our true stories, collect them from the affiliates and submit them to the group. We receive and exchange information [and] liaise with other organizations.”

Photo by Jennifer N Fish.

Providing tools for action on the ground

WIEGO works alongside worker organizations to make sure ILC gains are implemented at the national and local level.

In the case of C189, Pamhidzai Bamu, WIEGO’s Law Programme Coordinator for Africa, says WIEGO aimed to ensure the convention became more than just a document.

Bamu worked with regional coordinator for the International Domestic Workers Federation in Africa, Vicky Kanyoka, to develop a toolkit that turned a technical agreement into a document that made the convention accessible, understandable, and something workers could relate to.

“It’s a living instrument that should translate into tangible protections, tangible decent working conditions, tangible improvements for them,” she said.

“If we say making it real, it says something about agency, about ownership, about involvement, participation of the workers.”

Kanyoka said the toolkit has proven to be useful for workers and partners.

“We have learned to use it and not keep it on our shelves,” she said.

Members of the WIEGO Team in South Africa participate in a panel alongside Charles Parkerson, then-Director of Economic Development for the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) and Nohra Padilla, a leader with the National Association of Waste Pickers of Colombia. The panel brought together officials involved in implementing R204 in South Africa. Photo by Jonathan Torgovnik.

Working with national and local authorities to implement labour standards

When the South African government began its implementation process for R204, the Recommendation on the Transition from the Informal to the Formal Economy, it failed to include workers in informal employment.

It took two years of organizing and advocacy before these workers were included.

In 2016, trade unions and organizations representing workers in informal employment organized a workshop with ILO support, and WIEGO facilitating discussions to deepen workers’ understanding of R204. In it, participants decided to set up their own task team for implementation.

The following year, a national tripartite-plus workshop on implementation of R204 was organized by the ILO, where the government corrected its oversight in leaving workers out, and they were included in the R204 National Task Team.

‘We moved mountains’

WIEGO has persisted in its ILC engagement, from sending small, unofficial delegations through to being deemed an official NGO observer in 2009 – allowing access to ILO supports and giving delegations limited speaking rights.

Worker networks have also been able to make considerable ground – formerly not represented by trade union delegations, and therefore not able to take part in discussions – with StreetNet International, HomeNet International and International Alliance of Waste Pickers now accepted as observer organizations in the Worker Group and the International Domestic Workers Federation recognized as a global union federation.

Karin Pape, WIEGO’s Deputy Director of ORP, supported domestic workers in their historic fight for their own ILO Convention.

“If I look at the ILC in 2002 and now, we moved mountains,” she said.

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