December 10th is International Human Rights Day, marking the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948. This landmark document sets out a range of labour rights “indispensable” for human dignity. These include rights to work; to form and join trade unions; to decent working conditions; and to social protection. Critically, these are rights that everyone is entitled to, without distinction.
Anniversaries are a good moment for pause and reflection. In this case, we might ask why – more than three quarters of a century later – these rights remain largely out of reach for the 2 billion workers worldwide estimated to be in informal employment? A key reason is that the legal framework giving effect to rights at work – labour law – creates a distinction between workers who are in a formal employment relationship and those who aren't. This means informally employed workers are excluded from labour laws altogether, or that labour laws are designed in a way that limits the protections and entitlements afforded to them.
WIEGO has done critical work to expand the scope of labour law scholarship and practice beyond this binary. But international human rights standards – developed from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – can play a bigger role in furthering this aim. There are a number of ways that adopting a human rights lens helps us see – and address – the particular challenges facing workers in informal employment.
Spotlighting government action
A human rights lens focuses our attention on the ways that state actions impact workers’ rights, some of which will be in direct violation of the human rights these governments committed to protect, respect and fulfill. Calling out this inconsistency is one way to strengthen arguments for labour law reforms. Collective labour laws, for example, can create onerous representivity thresholds or administrative requirements for establishing unions, which may be impossible for organizations of workers in informal employment to meet. Similarly, workers may be directly or indirectly excluded by eligibility criteria set out in social protection laws.
Critically, governments’ human rights obligations extend to all levels. This means that local authorities are key ‘duty bearers’, with responsibilities for the rights of workers in informal employment. Spotlighting this can support workers in public space to push back against the myriad of regulations, by-laws and city ordinances that criminalize, restrict, or regulate their activities through arbitrary, discriminatory, or corrupt enforcement.
A new outlook on workplace safety
A human rights lens also shows us the unique challenges workers in informal employment face because of where and how they work. As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather, workers in informal employment face threats of extreme heat, flooding, and fires. The case that just transition planning must include climate-resilient infrastructure to make these workplaces safe can be made by drawing on socioeconomic rights enshrined in international law and national constitutions. As well as occupational health and safety, these rights guarantee adequate housing, clean water and sanitation, and a healthy environment to all.
Importantly, international human rights law is explicit that governments must invest resources to realize these rights. This brings financing questions into the conversation. The human rights obligations governments have in relation to how they raise money, how they allocate it, and how they spend it can be leveraged by cities looking for ways to address the financing gap for climate action.
Taking a global view
A human rights lens broadens our perspective outwards, to the global economy. Governments’ human rights obligations extend beyond their borders. Their duty to regulate the private sector extends to preventing corporations within their jurisdiction from harming people’s rights abroad. Labour law, by contrast, has jurisdiction only in the country where work is performed.
This is hugely important for workers who are part of complex global value chains, which can include homeworkers, street vendors, and waste pickers. Their working conditions are shaped by the business models of transnational corporations, who profit from their labour, often far outside of an employment relationship. So it is critical that workers in informal employment are heard in debates about the evolving scope of corporate obligations under international human rights law.
Keeping a focus on organizing rights
This is not to say that human rights should displace labour law as the legal framework giving effect to rights at work. Rather, that human rights should be a tool in our efforts to extend labour protections to workers in informal employment. Labour law offers much stronger procedural safeguards for workers to claim – and bargain for – their rights. For example, freedom of association is a fundamental labour right that enables workers to build associational power and to collectively bargain for improved working conditions and social protection. By contrast, human rights contain principles such as public participation and civic engagement. While still critically important, they are much broader.
When they can’t unionize, workers in informal employment organize as associations or cooperatives. But this has limitations, as they are subject to regulations that restrict civic space, including by constraining the form civil society organizations take, how they’re established, their governance structures, and their permissible activities.
With a few exceptions, what kinds of labour laws are appropriate for, accessible to, and inclusive of workers in informal employment is a question that has not received much attention from the human rights community. Fortunately, that is starting to change. WIEGO is supporting promising standard setting processes at the regional human rights systems of Latin America and Africa. These aim to identify, concretely, the steps governments need to take to make the promises of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights a reality for all workers.