WIEGO Blog

Labour law only “sees” employees. It resists the idea that self-employed workers in the informal economy, such as street vendors and waste pickers, should also be the subjects of labour law. WIEGO's panel at the Labour Law Research Network aimed to challenge this.

The Association of Waste Pickers Bokk Diom demands that Senegal’s government keeps its promises of inclusion as the closure of West Africa's largest dump, Mbeubeuss, gathers pace. WIEGO’s local specialist, Maguette Diop, explains that the survival of thousands of workers and their families is more threatened than ever.

Street vendors across the Global South are exposed to repeated cycles of evictions. In the African cities of Accra, Dakar and Durban, vendors have faced a crisis on top of a crisis, as evictions have extended far beyond the period of COVID-related restrictions, complicating their efforts at recovery. But they are working to strengthen their organizational power.

In this interview, Lourdes Gula, President of PATAMABA, talks about the legacy of the organization of informal workers in the Philippines that she helped found, and shares her dreams for the future.

Society is still not valuing domestic workers more than a decade after the International Labour Organization adopted a convention extending working rights to them. Only six African countries adopted the convention, leading to widespread discriminatory practices. Empowerment programs aim to assist domestic workers in understanding their rights and negotiating directly with employers, promoting bottom-up change.