What is Homeworking?
Millions of women around the world do homebased work.
It is often the only way they can combine earning an income alongside their unpaid domestic work.
Work is done in and around the home or at a neighbour’s home or yard, it tends to be badly paid in cash, irregular and outside of the formal economy.
Hidden within their homes, they are rarely counted in official statistics or recognised by trade unions.
They are frequently denied any rights to social security or pensions and have been hit particularly hard by the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent supply chain disruption.
The most recent (2021) ILO study estimates that prior to COVID-19 there were approximately 260 million homebased workers worldwide, representing 7.9 per cent of the global labour force, and 11.5% of the female labour force.
Homebased work is usually labour intensive and often done by hand, although some women use sewing machines, soldering irons or other tools and machinery.
Types of work include:
Traditional crafts such as weaving or embroidery
Processing natural products like making rope or shelling cashew nuts
Industrial work such as cutting artificial diamonds or glass
Stitching leather shoes
Sewing garments
Packing work
Trimming rubber or plastic items
Piece Rate Workers:
Many homebased workers are paid on a piece-rate. Often known as homeworkers or outworkers, they are effectively dependent workers, with similar rights to those working in the factory.
Homeworkers complete work for an employer or intermediary who provides their work, sets piece rates and deadlines, and often provides raw materials and equipment.
Digital workers such as teleworkers and home-based platform workers are also included within this group.
Own Account Workers:
Own-account workers make products which they sell themselves, direct to the customer. For example, making cakes or pastries for sale on a stall or making clothes to order for individuals.
Whilst they don’t have a direct employer, they are often in a very weak economic position and may be highly dependent on intermediaries for supplies of raw materials, credit or access to markets.
These two categories are distinct but in reality, they are not so easy to define because many women combine different kinds of work.
For example, a garment homeworker may do piece rate work when it is ‘put out’ by the factory, but at other times make clothes for sale or to order, for neighbours and friends. Or an own account worker could have a customer who starts to place regular, large orders – meaning she is then unable to keep up with other customers and becomes increasingly dependent on a single source of work.
Regardless of which ‘type’ of work they do, home-based workers are one of the most marginalised and precarious groups of workers within the global value chain.
This needs to change.
Rights for Homeworkers
Homeworkers have been organising into trade unions, associations, self-help groups, cooperatives and informal groups for over 50 years. Here are some of their key demands:
Rights and recognition as workers
Homeworkers work long hours and earn vital income for their families. They also play a key role in the supply chain, but they do not receive the same rights and protections as other workers. Their labour is often dismissed as ‘not real work’.
Women’s work is often devalued and dismissed in this way.
Homeworkers should be recognised as workers with the same rights and protections as other workers.
A living wage and regular work
Homeworkers are usually paid by piece rate and their wages are often very low - generally well below any statutory minimum wages
Their work can also be irregular, and as informal workers, they have no guarantee of work – or an income - from one day to the next. Wages that are both low and irregular can make budgeting for basic needs extremely difficult.
A living wage is a basic labour right but it is a distant aspiration for many homeworkers.
Social protection and health insurance
A key demand for many homeworkers is entitlement to protection when they are sick, at times of maternity or in old age.
Homeworkers are often unable to access social security protection because they are not recognised as real workers.
In some countries there is no social protection or the system that exists is not flexible enough to respond to homeworkers’ fluctuating working patterns.
Employers and governments should be working to ensure homeworkers can access basic social security.
The right to organise and have a voice
Freedom of Association is a fundamental human right, but in practice it can be difficult for homeworkers to exercise this right.
Homeworkers face many challenges to organising. Isolated in their homes, many with domestic responsibilities to manage, there is little time for additional activities.
Creative and flexible approaches to organising are needed to enable homeworkers to build strong, independent organisations of their own.
Organising
Individually homeworkers are often in a very vulnerable position. We believe that the best way to improve homeworkers situation is if they come together to build strength through solidarity and collective organising.
However homeworkers face many challenges to organising - and creative and flexible approaches are needed, which respond to the homeworkers’ particular situation and local context. Thus a group of homeworkers may decide to form a trade union, an association or co-operative, or a self-help group, or other informal grouping.
By growing together and learning from each other, homeworkers can build strong and independent organisations. Here are just some of the ways homeworkers have overcome obstacles and built organisations to fight for their rights.
India
Organising homeworkers in the Tirupur garment industry
Madeira
The union of embroiders in Madeira, Portugal
Australia
Fair Wear Campaign & the Homeworkers’ Code of Practice