An international women workers’ workshop in Seoul from October 15-17, 2000 focused on the paradox that globalisation – the integration of production and markets on a global scale – has been accompanied by informalisation and fragmentation of employment.

Globalisation and Informalisation

Rohini Hensman

An international women workers’ workshop in Seoul from October 15-17, 2000 focused on the paradox that globalisation – the integration of production and markets on a global scale – has been accompanied by informalisation and fragmentation of employment. It was organised by three networks of groups working with women workers: the Korean Women Workers’ Associations United (KWWAU), the Committee for Asian Women (CAW), and Women Working Worldwide (WWW). There were participants from Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Britain, Ireland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Bulgaria and Mexico. The aim of the workshop was to assess how globalisation has been affecting women workers, and to discuss strategies of resistance.

In almost all cases, globalisation had led to informalisation of employment, although there were wide differences in the way this situation developed. In Korea, for example, globalisation at first had a positive impact, creating jobs in the formal sector, but in the 1990s, sectors such as footwear and garments were moved to countries like China and Indonesia, leaving large numbers of women workers jobless and forced to look for work in the informal sector. The crisis of 1997 worsened problems of unemployment and insecurity. In India, on the other hand, shifting of production into the vast informal sector was already taking place prior to trade liberalisation. In most cases, there were more women in the informal sector even before the current phase of globalisation. Trade liberalisation had intensified competition between companies, leading them to cut costs by informalising employment, and between governments, who were attempting to attract investment and boost exports by attacking labour rights.

However, despite the loss of women’s jobs in the formal sector, and the very exploitative conditions in the informal sector and Free Trade/Export Processing Zones where they were increasingly forced to seek employment, it was still felt that globalisation had also had positive impacts on women. In many countries there had been an expansion of female employment, providing women with opportunities to gain independence and self-confidence as well as opening up possibilities for organising and networking. These had resulted in demands for greater equality in societies traditionally dominated by extremely patriarchal relationships.

Halting and reversing the informalisation of employment, tackling the problem of unemployment, and obtaining basic workers’ rights as well as reproductive and parental rights, were seen as crucially important for improving the conditions of women workers. A problem experienced in many countries was male domination of trade unions, and the difficulty of getting these organisations to address the problems of women workers, especially in the informal sector. One model which many participants found appealing was the newly-formed Korean Women’s Trade Union (KWTU), which was organising women workers neglected by mainstream unions. While remaining autonomous of the main federations, it could also cooperate with them on issues of common interest. One evening during the workshop, a cultural group associated with the KWTU and KWWAU performed an imaginative, professional and thoroughly enjoyable musical which inspired participants from other countries. A second model was the formation of women’s sections within mainstream unions, but in some cases this could lead to lack of autonomy for the women. A third model was one in which NGOs provided services to women workers, but here again, problems could arise if there were ‘territorial’ disputes between unions and NGOs rather than a rational division of labour between them. Wide differences in social security provision between, for example, western Europe and south Asia meant that it was impossible to have common strategies for tackling unemployment; in the former case it might mean campaigning to strengthen unemployment benefits, while in the latter case it might mean forming workers’ cooperatives. In both, however, a struggle for shorter working hours could help to generate employment.

Three possible strategies for international action were considered. One was affiliation to international union organisations, especially the international trade secretariats dealing with various branches of production. The second was codes of conduct guaranteeing basic workers’ rights, which consumer campaigners in western Europe and North America were attempting to impose on retail companies sourcing from countries in the third world. The third was the introduction of a workers’ rights clause into agreements of the World Trade Organisation. Participants agreed to use the existing networks to build up data bases on companies and subcontracting chains, and to discuss these strategies further. It was suggested that workers would always remain at a disadvantage if they were divided and fragmented nationally while capital was integrated globally; in this context, the most effective strategy would be not to ‘resist globalisation’ but to ‘globalise resistance’, and this workshop was a step in that direction.

It was pointed out that many governments on the one hand insist that organisations like the WTO should not have rules protecting workers’ rights, and then claim that they cannot protect workers’ rights because international rules prevent them from doing so! In actual fact, they are not as helpless as they pretend to be, because they participate in making decisions which they then use as an excuse for attacking workers’ rights. Recognising this, the workshop concluded with a statement that:

There has been a rapid informalisation of employment, which has resulted in falling real wages, erosion of labour rights, increased hazards and environmental degradation, longer hours of work, increasing quotas and growing poverty and unemployment. The human and social costs include the destruction of families and an erosion of the social fabric, dramatically exemplified by the social consequences of the economic crisis of 1997.

We reject the argument that these processes are a necessary consequence of globalisation. Government policy can play a major role in either exacerbating them or securing and supporting the rights and livelihoods of all their citizens, including women workers.

We therefore demand that they

(1) Take immediate steps to reverse increasing informalisation of work and to increase secure jobs for all.
(2) Ratify and implement, as a minimum measure, all Core ILO Conventions and Conventions which protect the rights of women workers, particularly conventions regarding maternity rights and home-based workers, and extend these rights to all other marginalised categories of workers.
(3) Recognise, support and protect all organisations of workers, including organisations of informal sector workers, women’s trade unions, community organisations and migrant workers’ organisations.
(4) Set up social safety nets for workers that would include a living wage, benefits for the unemployed, reproductive health, child care, education, and housing for women workers.
(5) Enact and implement equal opportunity laws that would ensure that there will be no discrimination based on gender, age, disability, ethnicity, religion, nationality status or sexual orientation.
(6) Promote these policies at an international level and reverse those current policies which undermine them.