The International Labour Organization (ILO) introduced the concept of the informal sector more than 25 years ago. The informal sector has been understood to mean very small-scale units producing and distributing goods and services, and consisting largely of independent, self-employed producers in urban and rural areas of developing countries, some of which also employ family labour and/or few hired workers or apprentices; which operates with very little capital or none at all; which utilize a low level of technology and skills; which therefore operates at a low level of productivity; and which generally provides very low and irregular income and highly unstable employment to those who work in it. It also includes activities that are carried out without formal approval from authorities and escape the administrative machinery responsible for enforcing legislation and similar instruments.1
This definition, itself adapted from the ILO, does not perhaps capture the importance or the dynamism of the informal sector, which is a major provider of urban jobs. In urban areas, informal sector enterprises include a very wide range of industries, occupations and working situations. These include street food or market vendors, small automotive and machine repair shops, small-scale manufacturers such as garments, shoes or handicrafts2 , waste recyclers, beauty parlours and transport drivers, amongst others. Estimates in some South-East Asian and South Asian cities put its share of the total workforce at around 50 to 60 per cent. A substantial number of these workers are women. Workers and owner-operators in small and micro-enterprises are not just a majority of the world's working people. They build markets, expand trade, manage natural resources, fight poverty, generate employment, strengthen communities, support families and feed most of the world's children.3
It is difficult to form an accurate picture of the informal sector in any one country, let alone the world, or even just the Asian region, as a whole. It seems, however, that throughout the developing world, the number of informal sector workers is increasing. Of course, in some of the countries that had been part of the "East Asian Miracle", the informal sector's share of the labour market had been falling before the financial crisis, but it has grown enormously in Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and elsewhere in the last year.
If it is difficult to find reliable information about those who work in the informal sector, it is even more difficult to pinpoint their problems relating to occupational safety and health. Very often, informal sector operators and workers may not even be registered with the appropriate regulatory authorities. They may also be imperfectly covered in the national statistical collections such as labour force surveys. Since few informal sector workers are covered by social security, and especially by workers' compensation, the information on occupational accidents and diseases that is collected as a result of claims ignores these workers. Since labour inspectors in developing countries are not well enough resourced even to inspect adequately and often enough the medium and large enterprises, they can rarely if ever turn their attention to the problems of informal sector workers. So information on informal sector workers is also missing from data collected by labour inspectors during their regular inspections for compliance with occupational safety and health standards.
We have recently begun to see large-scale surveys that provide some information on occupational safety and health in the informal sector. In the Philippines, in particular, no less than three surveys in the last five years have covered aspects of this. A National Survey of Working Children, conducted by the National Statistical Office with assistance from the ILO's International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), collected information from a large sample of workers aged 5 - 17 on their perceptions of their working conditions and occupational safety and health, and on their experiences of occupational accidents and diseases.4 A Survey on Homeworkers in Metro Manila, also conducted by the National Statistical Office, provided information on work-related injuries and illnesses of that important group of informal sector workers.5 Furthermore, a Survey on the Urban Informal Sector in Metro Manila, conducted by the National Statistical Office with ILO assistance, asked questions of both the owner-operators of informal sector enterprises and of workers in informal enterprises concerning occupational safety and health.6 As a result of these surveys we can begin for the first time to piece together a more comprehensive picture of the problem. But the picture is tantalizingly contradictory. We will certainly have to continue to rely also on the results of small-scale fieldwork, at least to add depth to the information gathered through these larger surveys. The ILO is supporting follow-up research to these surveys, focusing on occupational safety and health and working conditions in the informal sector.
According to the Urban Informal Sector Survey in Metro Manila, the sectors with the highest (self-reported) incidence of work-related illnesses were agriculture, construction, transport, personal and household services, and trading. Informal sector workers in manufacturing were less likely to report work-related illness. However, most of the work-related accidents reported were in manufacturing, construction and transport. Most of the accidents in the transport sector were vehicular, but other sectors such as agriculture, food and beverage retailing and trading, were also prone to vehicular accidents. Construction accounted for most of the accidents due to falls. Fire or electric-related accidents were highest amongst informal sector workers in restaurants, followed by personal and household services and food and beverage retailing. Machine-related accidents tended to occur in manufacturing, repair services, other trade and construction.7
Amongst the 3.6 million working children in the Philippines, over half acknowledged that they were exposed to physical hazards in their work, especially temperature, humidity and noise, while a quarter recognized that they were exposed to chemical hazards, mostly dust and fumes. Nineteen per cent reported that they were exposed to biological hazards, principally bacteria and fungus. In all cases, the largest number of complaints came from children engaged in farming or retail trade, but these also accounted for the largest number of child workers. Children involved in farming were most concerned about flooding, access to clean water, and unsanitary conditions. Those in retail trade and non-food manufacturing were concerned, on the other hand, with inadequate working space, noise, poor ventilation and lighting.
It is important to note that work intensity, workload and stress are significant factors in assessing the hazards of children's work. Ten per cent of working children said that they always performed heavy physical work, 10 per cent found their work stressful and 17 per cent came home exhausted.8 ILO-sponsored research in the Philippines has helped in defining hazardous work for children, taking into account both work intensity and the level of safety of the tasks performed by children (working environment, materials and tools and equipment).9
Smaller-scale surveys have also provided useful information on the hazards faced by different groups of informal sector workers. A "snapshot study" of working conditions among informal sector operators in construction, automotive/machinery repair and metalwork noted prevalent problems of poor housekeeping, work postures and unsafe use of equipment, as well as inadequate ventilation and lighting.10 Another small study carried out for the ILO's Interdepartmental project on the Urban Informal Sector, amongst retaso (garment factory remnants) workers, found that heat was the most prevalent problem, followed by poor lighting, chemical hazards and ergonomic problems and fatigue.11 In Africa, a pilot survey in Dar es Salaam found the following health complaints to be common amongst the informal sector workers surveyed: respiratory illnesses, backpain, joint and muscle pain, headaches, hernia and fungal infection of feet and hands. These complaints were associated with dust and solvents exposure, strenuous work, improper work posture and poor seats, long working hours with physical or mental stress, heavy lifting of loads including inadequate lifting postures, and wet work and working on damp surfaces without shoes.12
If the occupational safety and health problems of informal sector workers vary considerably, according particularly to their industry and occupation, they have common roots in problems of poverty, insecurity of land tenure, poor education, lack of institutional support, and weak organization.
Much of the informal sector is associated with urban poverty and slums. In a survey conducted in Bangkok, Thailand, 87 per cent of the city's slum dwellers were found to work in the informal sector. Basic services such as electricity and access to clean drinking water, and social infrastructure such as schools and hospitals, are often inaccessible to slum residents. Meagre incomes among urban informal sector workers limit opportunities to live and work in an hygienic and safe environment and this is exacerbated by housing insecurity. Since most informal operators also use their home as their workplace, better housing conditions brought about through greater security of housing tenure provide better working conditions while boosting productivity.13
While they may face acute problems of occupational safety and health, awareness of this is low amongst informal sector workers. Awareness of ways to improve their working conditions is even lower. The National Survey of Working Children in the Philippines found that some 17.6 per cent of young workers aged 5 to 17 considered some aspect of their work to be dangerous (boys were twice as likely as girls), with the risk of disease cited more frequently than accident risk. This was less than the number reporting that they had at some time suffered work-related injuries or illnesses. Adults are perhaps less willing to acknowledge problems: the Urban Informal Sector Survey in Metro Manila reported that only 1.8 percent had experienced work-related accidents. Most reported their working conditions as being good or fair, indicating that they are unaware of the hazards or accept them as an integral part of their working lives.14
The most pressing concerns of informal sector operators and workers are with their survival, and eventually with the growth of their businesses. Business concerns, especially access to finance, productivity, profitability, are seen as an extension of personal or family concerns, especially the family's livelihood. Health is an important family concern, but the link with business concerns is generally not made. Ninety per cent of informal sector enterprises were not interested in learning about safety and health.15 Approaches for improving occupational safety and health in the informal sector must first overcome this lack of interest.
Action to improve occupational safety and health in the informal sector can and should be multi-pronged. Legislation and enforcement relating to occupational safety and health and working conditions may have been largely irrelevant to informal sector workers in the past,16 but it is essential to apply, gradually, the protective measures specified in international labour standards and national laws and regulations. In view of the lack of interest by informal sector workers, as well as by governmental and non-governmental organizations in the occupational safety and health problems confronting informal sector workers, particular attention must be paid to awareness-raising. Efforts are also needed to produce technical guidance that is adapted to the situation, problems and needs of informal sector workers (or of particular groups of informal sector workers). This will in turn promote the effective use of action-oriented programmes, since these will necessarily depend on the informal sector operators and workers themselves being - and feeling - equipped to tackle their own problems. Strategies and solutions that depend heavily on external expertise will not lead to widespread improvement.
Strategies for improving occupational safety and health in the informal sector must give due regard to institutionalization. Few organizations in developing countries give priority to providing services or support for the informal sector: rather more, probably, are concerned with regulating or taxing the informal sector. As a starting point, therefore, the organizations whose mandates extend to the informal sector need to be encouraged to consider how their work could contribute to the goal of improving occupational safety and health.
At the level of national government, labour ministries, health ministries and ministries concerned with micro-enterprises (such as ministries for industry or agriculture) all potentially can play important roles. All, however, are subject to constraints. Labour ministries, which in most countries have the main responsibility within government for occupational safety and health, are not even able to carry out these functions adequately for larger, formal enterprises because of a shortage of human and other resources. Health ministries, with their work in community health, are usually much better placed than labour ministries to take action at the local level, but their work at the community level tends to focus on other health problems, and the issues concerning occupational safety and health are rarely addressed. Ministries for industry or agriculture may have extension workers providing services at the local level, but again the links between occupational safety and health and business concerns are all too rarely made. Local governments, for their part, have often been seen by informal sector operators as adversaries rather than a source of help, because of their regulatory and enforcement roles.
In the modern formal sector, employers' and workers' organizations have sometimes made important contributions to occupational safety and health, especially through education and awareness programmes for their members. These organizations generally do not have members in the informal sector and their efforts are therefore not directed there.17 The organizations of informal sector operators, on the other hand, have not yet developed to the stage where they have been able to include occupational safety and health in their activities. There are, on the other hand, many NGOs working closely with the informal sector, mostly assisting in providing business development support or in more political objectives such as land tenure in urban slums. Occupational safety and health in the informal sector has not been on their agenda, despite the evident links with the issues with which they are concerned.
In his report to the 78th International Labour Conference in 1991, the Director General of the ILO noted the dilemma presented by the informal sector. On the one hand, the sector provides jobs and income to millions of people in urban areas of developing countries, where formal jobs are not widely available. On the other hand, labour standards are not adhered to, while poor working conditions and child labour are common. The dilemma is this: should countries forego employment and income for the urban poor in the interest of labour-standard enforcement; or should they ignore poor working environments for the sake of jobs? The Director General's report concluded that it is possible to improve working conditions gradually while improving productivity and income.18
Notwithstanding the difficulties inherent in implementation of standards in the informal sector, it is clear that the development of policies and the setting of standards, nationally as well as internationally, must play an important part in strategies for improving occupational safety and health and working conditions in the informal sector. In this regard, it is noteworthy that the International Labour Conference in 1996 adopted the Home Work Convention (No. 177), evidence of a new level of concern for these issues. The Convention calls on governments to include homeworkers in labour statistics and labour inspection systems. It states that national policy, while taking account of the special conditions of home work, should provide equality of treatment between homeworkers and other wage earners. Home workers should be able to establish and participate in organizations of their own choosing, be protected against discrimination, and be covered by national occupational safety and health regulations and social security provisions.
In the year 2000, the first discussion will be held at the International Labour Conference on possible new international labour standards concerning safety and health in agriculture.
The ILO has sought to bring together standard-setting and practical assistance. Thus, for example, a Danish-funded ILO project, covering Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand and completed in 1996, established networks to provide information, mutual support and generally improved working conditions for women engaged in piecework at home and encouraged ministries of labour to see them as an important client group. A new Danish-funded project is assisting trade unions in relation to the informal sector in Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Relevant international labour standards are not limited to homeworkers. The most important Conventions relating to occupational safety and health, The Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 1981 (No. 155) and the Occupational Health Services Convention, 1985 (No. 161), are certainly relevant to informal sector workers, and the ILO is actively promoting the ratification and implementation of these. In 1998 the International Labour Conference will begin consideration of a possible new Convention aimed at the most hazardous and exploited forms of child labour, in which issues of safety and health for working children will loom large.
Do we need extensive surveys of the occupational safety and health problems of informal sector workers? Certainly there is no need to rely on extensive studies and surveys to conclude that occupational safety and health hazards in the informal sector are important and that priority should be given to the development of problem-solving strategies.19 On the other hand, we cannot yet claim to have a clear picture of the problem, not even clear enough to confidently identify who should be the priority target groups of informal sector workers for assistance. Most importantly, we still need to learn more about the attitudes and concerns of the informal sector workers and operators themselves towards their safety and health at work, since successful action programmes must take as their starting point these attitudes and concerns. Moreover, there is a pressing need to raise public and government awareness of the occupational safety and health problems facing informal sector workers, for which the information provided by studies and surveys is invaluable.
We know, from surveys such as the Urban Informal Sector Survey in Metro Manila, that informal sector workers do not value safety and health at work. They are not interested in learning more about it, not interested in spending their very scarce capital to improve working conditions and eliminate hazards.
The same is true, although in a less extreme way, for small-scale enterprises. The ILO has been putting this understanding to very practical use for over a decade in Asia. Its WISE methodology (Work Improvement in Small Enterprises) is targeted at the owners and managers of small-scale enterprises, promoting action to improve working conditions through simple, low-cost solutions which improve productivity at the same time. When small-scale entrepreneurs understand the positive connection between working conditions and productivity, and understand, moreover, that action to improve conditions need not be out of their reach either financially or technically, they are quick to respond. A recently-concluded three-year WISE project in the Philippines led to many thousands of improvements being planned and implemented in small-scale enterprises. WISE projects in Latin America and Africa have also resulted in widespread action to improve small-scale enterprises.
Much that has been learned from WISE can be applied in micro-enterprises and the informal sector. Many simple, low-cost improvements can be made that will benefit both occupational safety and health and productivity. But the WISE programme cannot be simply replicated in the informal sector. The most important reasons for this area are a lack of participants and a lack of partners. Participants because, as mentioned above, informal sector operators and workers simply are not much interested in occupational safety and health, even when it is presented as the other side of the productivity coin. Partners because the organizations that are willing and able to work with the informal sector are generally not ready, either, to make occupational safety and health a major element in their work.
As part of an ILO Interdepartmental Project on the Urban Informal Sector, action programmes to improve occupational safety and health and working conditions were implemented in Manila,20 Dar es Salaam21 and Bogota. The current Executive Director of the Occupational Safety and Health Center, Dr. Estrella-Gust, who is a leading international expert on safety and health in the informal sector, was closely involved in this initiative, especially in Africa. Much was learned from these small-scale action programmes than can now be applied to the development of new and effective approaches.
We are now, in the ILO, responding to this challenge by trying to develop an approach that is inspired by the success of "WISE," but which puts working conditions and occupational safety and health into the broader concerns of enterprise development. Another well-established ILO methodology, "Improve Your Business" (IYB), has aimed at promoting enterprise development amongst micro-enterprises. During the last two years we worked with organizations in Malaysia, Nepal and the Philippines to develop and test new methodologies which would learn from both WISE and IYB, methodologies for healthy enterprise development in the informal sector. On the basis of some very successful pilot tests (including one by the DOLE's Bureau of Rural Workers, which is continuing to apply and develop the approach since the end of the ILO pilot programme), a new ILO programme is being developed. A manual on Improve Your Work Environment and Business (I-WEB) for micro-manufacturers is being finalized. Occupational safety and health will inevitably take more of a back seat in this developing methodology than it does in WISE. But we are hopeful that it will enable informal sector operators and workers to be introduced to occupational safety health concerns and that it will be effective in promoting action for improvement.
WISE was originally developed to be generally applicable to small-scale manufacturing enterprises, since it was realized that, whatever industry they were in, they faced many common problems. These related to materials handling and storage, workstation design, productive machine safety, control of hazardous substances, lighting, premises, work-related welfare facilities and work organization. Since then, we have started to develop industry-specific WISE materials. The first of these have dealt with the garments sector, food processing, wood processing and metal working. The WISE approach has also been adapted to agriculture22 and forestry. Work Improvement in Neighbourhood Development (WIND), aimed at small-scale farmers, was first developed in Vietnam but is now being tested and adapted here in the Philippines, through the efforts of the Occupational Safety and Health Center and the DOLE's Bureau of Rural Workers, together with several other government agencies and peoples' organizations. These sector-specific approaches have the twin benefits of targeting more specifically the most prevalent or serious problems in a particular industry sector, and of attracting the involvement of industry associations. Learning from this, our aim is to develop industry-specific materials on occupational safety and health and working conditions in the informal sector, built on a common framework.
The ILO is also examining, with UNDP support in the Philippines, possible approaches that would link community-based enterprise development, improvement of working conditions and social protection in the informal sector. In view of the predominance of the informal sector in urban slums, community-based approaches would seem to offer many possibilities for improving occupational safety and health.
Another of these possibilities, which was explored by the ILO's Interdepartmental Programme on the Urban Informal Sector, is to recruit community health workers in the campaign for improved occupational safety and health. ILO selected Save the Children to develop and launch a participatory action research programme in the Philippines, because Save the Children was already providing training and support to community volunteer health workers, in collaboration with the Department of Health. Save the Children was also assisting urban poor communities in microenterprise development and involved in this project the microenterprise industry association with which it was collaborating. Both the community volunteer health workers and the informal sector industry association were directly involved in obtaining basic information on the working conditions of the informal sector target group in the communities. Based on the results of this research, a training module was developed for the community volunteer health workers to enable them to provide consulting and referral services on occupational safety and health to informal sector workers in their communities.
Save the Children chose to build on the Community Volunteer Health Worker programme in order to take advantage of a national level programme which would offer potential for the expansion and institutionalization of efforts to improve occupational safety and health in the informal sector. It found that the community volunteer health workers recognized that they are in a unique position to help improve occupational safety and health in the informal sector and welcomed the programme, particularly their own role in gathering information. The strategy is especially promising because a very large number of those in the informal sector are home or community-based, the core clients of the community volunteer health workers. Moreover, the community volunteer health workers live in these communities themselves, and are adequately trained and familiar with health issues in their communities.23 For much the same reasons, the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health of the University of the Philippines worked with community volunteer health workers through a community-based approach in a pilot programme to improve occupational safety and health for agricultural workers.24 The WIND programme for farmers is being conducted through community-based organizations, in particular KASAMA.
Some groups of informal sector workers have special characteristics and needs that may warrant action to improve occupational safety and health targeted to the particular group. Evidently, child workers fall in this category. The ILO, through its International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, is now conducting action programmes to combat child labour and protect child workers in many Asian countries, as well as in other regions. Women's health concerns may be addressed in relation to their work, as for example in the case of the ILO project mentioned earlier concerning women homeworkers. Other ILO activities have promoted occupational safety and health for indigenous peoples.
In view of the size and scope of the informal sector and the very wide range of occupational safety and health problems confronting workers in different activities, approaches to improving occupational safety and health must be well targeted to the needs of particular groups of workers. These can include subsector-specific, enterprise-based strategies as well as community-based strategies, especially in urban slums.
The key in both approaches is simple, action-oriented programmes that focus on the priorities of informal sector workers. Since safety and health is not a priority for informal sector workers, it may therefore paradoxically need to take a back seat in promoting their safety and health. There is therefore a need to involve a wider range of organizations that have not previously been concerned with occupational safety and health.
1Government of the Philippines: Philippines Social Reform Agenda, Master Plan of Operations, Workers' Protection and Welfare, Workers especially in the Informal Sector.
2However, a distinction should perhaps be made between manufacturing micro-enterprises, which includes independent homeworkers, and the growing category of "hidden formal sector" workers constituted by those homeworkers, mostly women, who produce under sub-contract to larger contractors. The latter are located outside regular factories primarily to escape laws and regulations on wages, termination of employment and conditions of work, but in reality are effectively employed by the larger contractors. Nonetheless, they often suffer safety and health problems similar to those faced by informal sector workers.
3From "Building the Competitive Advantage of Small and Micro Entrepreneurs" Conference cosponsored by Save the Children, Appropriate Technology International, Women's World Banking, the Small Enterprise Education and Promotion Network, the InterAmerican Foundation and the International Coalition on Women and Credit; held in Washington D.C., June, 1996.
4National Statistical Office: 1995 National Survey of Working Children, Final Report, Vol. 1 (draft), Manila 1997
5National Statistical Office: 1993 Survey of Homeworkers
6National Statistical Office: 1995 Urban Informal Sector Survey in Metro Manila (draft),Manila 1997
7National Statistical Office: 1995 Urban Informal Sector Survey in Metro Manila (draft), Manila 1997
8National Statistical Office: 1995 National Survey of Working Children, Final Report, Vol. 1 (draft), Manila 1997
9R. Subida, R. Angluben and J. del Prado-Lu: Defining Hazardous Undertakings for Young Workers Below 18 years of Age: a review of government rules and guidelines for enforcement, ILO-IPEC, Manila, 1997 (draft)
10J.M. Batino: Snapshot of Working Conditions in the Urban Informal Sector, ILO Interdepartmental project on the Urban Informal Sector, Manila, ILO-SEAPAT, 1995
11A. Overy and P. Piamonte: Improving Working Conditions in the Informal Sector; paper for an ILO-sponsored workshop on Gearing Up for the Challenges and Opportunities in the Urban Informal Sector, Manila, September 1996
12V. Forestieri, P.G. Riva and D. Swai: Dar es Salaam, Occupational Safety and Health in the Informal Sector (Report on Intervention Strategies), ILO Interdepartmental Project on the Urban Informal Sector Working Paper, ILO, Geneva, 1996
13G. Joshi. Urban Informal Sector in Metro Manila: A Problem or Solution?, ILO's South-East Asia and the Pacific Multidisciplinary Advisory Team (ILO/SEAPAT), Manila, 1997.
14National Statistical Office: 1995 Urban Informal Sector Survey in Metro Manila (draft), Manila 1997
15National Statistical Office: 1995 Urban Informal Sector Survey in Metro Manila (draft), Manila 1997
16ILO Geneva: Report of the Director-General, Twelfth Regional Asian Meeting, 1997, p. 50
17Some trade unions are, however, now beginning to turn their attention to informal sector workers. One of the action programmes for working conditions and occupational safety and health that was implemented in the Philippines under the ILO's Interdepartmental project on the urban informal sector was carried out by a trade union.
18ILO Geneva: The dilemma of the informal sector. Report of the Director-General (Part I) to the 78th Session of the International Labour Conference, 1991, p. 4.
19 V. Forestieri: "Information Note on occupational safety and health strategies for the informal urban sector", ILO Geneva, 1997 (unpublished).
20A. Overy and P. Piamonte: Improving Working Conditions in the Informal Sector paper for an ILO-sponsored workshop on Gearing Up for the Challenges and Opportunities in the Urban Informal Sector, Manila, September 1996
21Forestieri, Riva and Swai (1996)
22Ton That Khai, T. Kawakami, K. Kogi and Nguyen Tung Son: Ergonomic Checkpoints for Agricultural Working and Living Conditions, Center for Primary Health Care and Occupational Health and Safety, Can Tho, Vietnam in collaboration with the Institute for Science of Labour, Japan, 1996
23Overy and Piamonte (1996).
24R.D. Subida et al.: Integration of Occupational Health services among Agricultural Workers in Rural Health Facilities, Department of Environmental and Occupational health - University of the Philippines, Manila, 1995
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