Building Resilience for the Future of Work and the Post COVID-19: Promoting Rights and Social Inclusion through Organization and Formalization (PRS) Phase I

Project Background:

Since its outbreak in 2020, Covid-19 has negatively impacted the national economies, employment, and societies across South Asia. Especially the crisis unveiled the weaknesses of the current labour market structure in South Asian countries, where informal employment is prevalent in all sectors, and most workers and economic units are little or inadequately protected. Recognizing the unprecedented challenges, ILO launched the “Building Resilience for the Future of Work and the Post COVID-19 (PRS/STRIDE/ now Phase I)” Project in 2021 with the funding of the Government of Japan, which extended necessary support and protection for the informal workers and economic units in vulnerable situations, especially focusing on women, and contributed towards promoting their formalization by collaborating with social partners across South Asia, including India.

National context:

Although India is one of the fastest growing economy in the world, the high incidence of informality remains a serious concern in Indian economy, where an estimated 90 per cent of the working population are engaged in informal employment characterized by low payments, little or no social security, lack of written job contracts, long working hours etc. India needs to have programs, policies, regulations and/or compliance mechanisms, that tackle challenges associated with informality. In this context, the PRS Project, works closely with social partners and government to implement measures that address decent work deficits and gender inequalities in the informal economy and promote formalization and also seeks to strengthen partnership and coordination among the policymakers, employers’ and workers’ organizations to tackle informality and gender inequality issues.

Project activities (Phase I):

1. Mobilization and awareness raising campaigns on fundamental labour rights and concepts like working hours and rest periods, minimum wages, gender issues, safe workplace (including freedom from violence and sexual harassment), were organized in four states of India (Bihar, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Delhi), through a network of 150 trainers (of which 50 were women) to reach out to 18000 unorganized workers (including 7500 women workers) in sectors such as domestic work, street vending, weaving, plantation, building and other construction work, plastic recycling and dye etc.
2. A total of 5500 workers were linked to various social security schemes, such as, Ayushman Bharat, (through) E-Shram portal, Pradhan Mantri Mandhan Yojna, etc. and the number of workers being facilitated is ever increasing.
3. Community leadership training programs were organized (in the above four states), every fortnight, over a period of two months, with select informal workers (a total of 160 trained, including 70 women) to promote leadership skills, to strengthen advocacy towards labour rights.
4. Gender Equality training was provided by DWT Gender Specialist for South Asia to 150 participants over four batches in these select states of India.
5. A ‘Voluntary Pledge to Promote Decent Work for Domestic Workers in India’ was launched and adapted on the International Domestic Workers’ Day (16 June) in India in 2022, where employers’ pledged to provide decent working conditions to their domestic workers including, fair wages, well defined working and rest hours, private resting place (for live-in domestic workers), work environment that is free from discrimination, abuse, harassment and violence, etc.
6. Consultation workshops with leaders in central trade unions (CTUs) and Employers’ and Business Management Organizations (EBMOs) were organized to identify priority actions to promote gender equality among constituents.
7. Videos to ratify C189 (Domestic Workers Convention) and C190 (Violence and Harassment Convention) – featuring workers’ organizations and employers’ organizations were created.
8. Participation of Indian constituents (i.e. representatives from government, workers’ and employers’ organizations) in Regional Academy on Gender in Bangkok was also supported.

Implementing Partners:

Employers’ and Workers’ Organisations (national and state level: Bihar, Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu)