WIEGO Blog

A Q&A on a recently released scan of four occupational sectors

We spoke with the authors of a recently released study, "Informal Workers in Bangkok: A Scan of Four Occupational Sectors", to learn more about the role that domestic workers, home-based workers, motorcycle taxi drivers, and street vendors play in the city and about the federation they have formed to fight for more inclusive urban development.

WIEGO’s law team discusses how administrative law can empower and protect informal workers in urban public spaces

A growing number of workers in developed countries are working without the traditional employer-employee relationship in the so-called “gig economy” – also referred to as the sharing or on-demand economy. Over the past decade, techno-entrepreneurs have developed online platforms to connect customers and suppliers of a variety of tasks and services, not just car services (Uber) and rooms (Airbnb), which have spread quickly around the world. This new economy is disrupting not only existing industries but the whole concept of work. Tasks and services are being fragmented into bid-able gigs.

On July 13, hundreds of Johannesburg’s informal waste pickers (known locally as “reclaimers”) — men and women who have been collecting, separating, and selling the city’s reusable discards for generations — took to the streets to protest a municipal decision that could put them out of work essentially overnight. 

Half the world’s population live in cities, and urban informal workers make important economic, social, and environmental contributions to city life. Rhonda  Douglas from WIEGO argues that the New Urban Agenda must include all urban stakeholders, including the working poor, to ensure it doesn’t leave anyone behind.