Organising women workers in the informal economy - SEIWA

2.1.2 Advocacy Methods on IE legal and policy framework development

Recommendation: 2. Take the complex nature of advocacy as related to IE issues into account.

Reference: Kabeer, Naila; Milwars, Kirsty and Sdarshan, Ratna, 2013, Organising women workers in the informal economy; General background document on issues in our research matrix, SEIWA, Routledge, London.

Evidence sample: Analysis indicates that organising women in the informal economy is effective with respect to the experience of waste pickers in India.  Municipal governments in India have constitutional responsibility for waste management. They are supposed to provide medical insurance for waste pickers and earmark of spaces across the city for scrap sorting. SEWA was able to combine its knowledge of the law with the numerical strength and tenacity of the organisation, and familiar trade union tools of protest with less familiar ‘cultural appropriations’. It has also mobilised as part of a waste pickers’ network for the inclusion of waste pickers in social protection measures offered by the 2008 Unorganised Sector Workers’ Social Security Bill.