Date: 06/02/2025
Joint Statement on Inclusion of Informal Workers in the ILC
The ILO’s tripartite structure is the foundation for collaboration and collective progress towards social and economic security for the future of workers. The annual International Labor Conference provides an essential space for the voice of workers to be heard and respected, but it does provide this space to all workers. For the 2 billion workers who earn their living in the informal economy, the ILC offers no defined means for including their voice in the Tripartite process of the ILO, or in the Social Dialogues of most of their Member States.
Despite decades of focus, and multiple ILO Conventions on informal work, there remain substantial barriers for non-traditional unions and grassroots worker organizations to engage at the ILC and meaningfully contribute to the discourse on labour standards, ILO policies and the ILC agenda. The Agenda of this 2025 ILC includes discussion on transition of the informal to the formal economy, but there is no discussion on the inclusion of informal workers in this process and decision-making. It must be recognized that the most effective means for a viable and just transition to formal work required engaging informal workers in the process. This includes creating a formal space for informal worker representatives at the International Labor Conference and county-level Social Dialogue. We, a global community of worker-led organizations of the informal economy, respectfully request that the ILO begin a process to expand its tripartite delegation to include from every Member State an organization representing informal workers. Changing the ILO’s constitutional framework will take time, so we offer the following recommendations that in the interim will create a stronger role for informal workers in the ILC and ILO’s Tripartite processes.
- Member Delegations: Request Members to include a minimum of one informal worker representative in an advisory role of the Country Delegations seated at the ILC.
- ILC Admissions: Create a participant category under Article 2 for representatives of recognized international or domestic organizations of informal workers to be included in the Special List and reserve a permanent General Consultative Status for a federation representing informal workers.
- ILO Country Programs: Request all Decent Work Country Programs to submit an operating plan for engaging non-traditional unions and informal workers in country-level programming.
Together, we affirm the role of the ILO to build consensus on labour standards, practices and policies effecting the future of workers in the informal economy and we call on all Members to demand that the voice of ALL workers be given a platform to be heard and respected at the ILC.
Respectfully:
Amalgamated Union of Kenya Metal Workers (AUKMW) (Kenya)
Bodaboda Tuktuk and Taxi Workers Union-Kenya (BOTTAX-Kenya) (Kenya)
CEE-HOPE Nigeria (Nigeria)
Ciudad Saludable (Peru)
Council for Economic Empowerment for Women in Africa, Uganda Chapter (CEEWA-U) (Uganda)
Fédération des Travailleurs Domestiques et les Travailleurs de l’Economie Informelle du Mali (Mali)
Fédération des Travailleurs et Travailleuses de l’Economie Informelle du Côte d’Ivoire (FETTEI- CI)
(Côte d’Ivoire)
Fédération Nationale des Travailleurs des Transports, du Social et de l’Informelle (Burundi)
Federation of Informal Workers of Nigeria (FIWON) (Nigeria)
Gandhi Ashram Trust (GAT) (Bangladesh)
Ghana Federation of Forest and Farm Producers (Ghana)
Global Fairness Initiative (US)
HomeNet Eastern Europe and Central Asia (HNEECA)
HomeNet South Asia
Humanity United (US)
Informal Sector Federation of Kenya (Kenya)
Jamaica Household Workers’ Union (JHWU) (Jamaica)
Kenya National Micro Small and Medium Service Providers Umbrella (KENAMISMASPU) (Kenya)
Kenya Union of Domestic, Hotels, Educational Institutions, Hospitals and Allied Workers (Kenya)
Kuepa (Colombia)
Le Syndicat National des Travailleurs de l’Economie Informelle du Bénin (Benin)
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) (Nigeria)
Petty Traders and Informal Workers Union of Liberia (FEPTIWUL) (Liberia)
Platform Women in Action (PMA) (Angola)
Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (Nigeria)
Rural Women’s Farmers Association of Ghana (RUWFAG) (Ghana)
Syndicat des Travailleurs Domestiques et Indépendants de l’Economie Informelle du Rwanda
(SYTRIECI) (Rwanda)
Syndicat National des Travailleurs Domestique et de l’Economie Informelle Togo (Togo)
Syndicat National des Travailleurs du Secteur de l’Economie Informelle du Sénégal (Sénégal)
The Informal Economy Workers’ Forum Ghana (INFORUM) (Ghana)
Trade Union of Self-Employed and Informal Workers “Edinstvo” (Bulgaria)
Trinidad and Tobago National Union of Domestic Employees (Trinidad and Tobago)
Uganda Hotels, Food, Tourism, Supermarkets and Allied Workers Union (HTS-Union) (Uganda)
Union of Informal Workers Associations (UNIWA) (Ghana)
US Federation of Worker Cooperatives (US)
Voice of Domestic Workers (UK)
Workers in Informal Economy Network (Uganda)
Workers’ Right Campaign (WRC) (Nigeria)
Zimbabwe Chamber of Informal Economy Associations (ZCIEA) (Zimbabwe)
This Joint Statement is submitted by a global coalition of worker-led organizations, INGOs and informal sector federations together representing informal worker from ILO Member States.