Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) and Homeworkers

Recognizing the problem of homeworkers as a high-priority issue, SEWA carried out participatory studies in 1985 that provided information on specific issues, and in the process also organized homeworkers. From 1986 to 1991, SEWA and the ILO collaborated on a programme of action. In Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, beedi rollers, chikan- and zari-embroiderers, ready-made garment sewers, agarbatti rollers, papar- and tobacco workers, met together for the first time in camps (workshops) to talk about their problems and follow-up actions, exchange views, and forge common visions. Government officials and labour commissioners were invited to some camps to discuss issues such as wages, contractual arrangements, paid and maternity leave, procedures of refection of finished products, a provident fund for old age, and issuance of identity cards to homewarkers - a mechanism for recognition as wage workers. The camps were followed by literacy classes and workers' education classes. Leaders were given intensive paralegal training, and eventually became the homeworkers' vital sources for legal information on rights of workers. Following these activities, homeworkers in various trades in Ahmedabad (Gujarat), Indore (Madhya Pradesh) and Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) organized trade organizations. Leaders and organizers were able to write official letters, represent their members in court and bargain with employers. Negotiations with government authorities and employers tackled piece-rate levels, norms for rejection and employment security. 

The strategy has had impressive outcomes. By 1990, garment workers had been included in the Minimum Wage Schedule in Gujarat; piece-rate cages of beedi (tobacco), papad and agarbatti (incense) workers had increased in Ahmedabad; the Central Welfare Fund Commissioner had issued 6,000 identity cards to SEWA members in Gujarat, officially confirming the women's "worker" status; over 1,000 children of homeworkers had received scholarships from the beedi workers' welfare fund; bonuses had been distributed by contractors in some trades; and in selected cases equal pay far equal work had been enforced; furthermore, 1,200 beedi workers had received a provident fund benefits.

At the policy level, SSA has lobbied far expanding the framework of legal protection to include as many home-­based trades and workers as possible. The critical issue was to modify the legal interpretation of employer-­employee relationship by establishing as a fact that a worker is an employee of an employer no matter where she works, as had been adjudicated in a case for Ahmedabad beedi workers some time earlier.

In addition to the programme for homeworkers, SEWA has organized for the benefit of all its members (homeworkers and self-employed women) its own social protection schemes: a health-care cooperative providing primary health care, health education and generic drugs; a childcare cooperative, housing assistance through the SEWA Bank; and an insurance scheme run by the SEWA Bank in collaboration with two insurance companies.

Source: ILO: Invisible no more. The story of home-based workers (New Delhi, 1991); J. Vyas: Social security for unorganised rector. An integrated approach - SEWA's experience, paper presented to the ILO Workshop on Indigenous Social Protection Schemes, Chiang-Mai Thailand, 1994.

 Reader’s Kit on Gender, Poverty and Employment, MODULE 7.Extending Social Protection