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The WIEGO Urban Policies Team analyzed news articles on street vendors from six continents over the past 18 months to gain a better understanding of how these informal workers are — or, more precisely, “aren’t” — being incorporated into 21st-century cities. A troubling portrait emerged of widespread...
133 years after the Chicago working-time strike that gave rise to May Day, 2-billion workers continue to fall outside regulations for working hours and over-time compensation. Informal workers – now the majority of the global workforce – are calling for much-needed protections to limit their working...
In Dakar, Senegal, women continue to face economic and social inequities — from illiteracy to poverty to gender discrimination — but it’s also true that change is happening. Informal women workers have decided that they can improve their position if they join hands with other women and organize to...
Ninety-two per cent of women’s employment in the developing world is in the informal economy, and as urbanization proceeds an increasing number of these workers are to be found in cities. As they work to support themselves and their families, they lack protection and sufficient incomes to leave...
Valdete Roza is a Brazilian waste picker and leader in her cooperative who is pioneering gender discussions with her colleagues across her city and country.
For International Women’s Day, WIEGO is launching a month-long series to dive into the lives of women working in the informal economy. We will explore the challenges they face as women, mothers, wives and members of communities who often place restrictions on their earning power in myriad ways...
Nazma is home-based worker who has often found herself at the mercy of the sub-contractors who employ her. But now she has joined forces with other women home-based workers to challenge the status quo.
A Q&A with Taylor Cass Talbott It’s hard to miss the shocking images of heaping plastic floating in the middle of the world’s oceans on the covers of magazines and on the evening news. The photos and reports have raised alarm bells with both citizens and policymakers alike. The ocean plastic waste...
A Q&A with Lakshmi Narayan As cities across the globe struggle to find efficient, cost-effective ways to manage waste, the women waste pickers of Pune, India, have launched a pioneering way forward. Waste pickers are among the poorest and most marginalized residents in India’s cities. To improve...
The addition of a new category “dependent contractor” in the status in employment classification of labour statistics should lead to better data and thus better national policies to benefit homeworkers: that is, sub-contracted home-based workers who are neither fully independent self-employed nor...
Videos / Slideshows / Audio
Millions of women work long hours, in dangerous conditions, for little pay. They are fighting for change, with the help of ILO Convention 189 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers. Watch this video to learn how.
Workers Education/Organizing Materials
This manual helps street vendors learn more about the regulations that govern public space and how to defend the right to work in public space. It describes successful actions taken by street vendor organizations. And it offers information to help you organize and negotiate with local government.
WIEGO Working Papers
Mike Rogan reviews how informal workers are taxed, why there is growing interest in taxing them, and whether they should be included in the tax net.