Embracing informality to revive bargaining and empower workers

Over the decades, it was assumed that with economic growth and industrial development employment relations would be standardized or formalized. But modern capitalist development and the globalized economy are associated with a growth in informal employment without social or legal protections. How to renew collective bargaining and empower workers in a world where more than 60 per cent of all workers globally are informally employed, more so in developing countries? How to help worker representatives organize when labour regulations aren’t enough? Christophe Gauthier, Dr Fatimah Kari and Dr Martha Chen will explore the challenge of empowering informal workers through collective bargaining and other strategies: From restoring the dignity of workers, to connecting workers centers with social movements (MeToo, climate change, Black Lives Matter) to building regional and international networks of workers. While the COVID pandemic-cum-lockdowns have exposed the injustices, inequities and indignities faced by informal workers, our panelists will share different strategies and points of leverage used by workers and their allies to fight for social justice.

SPEAKERS Martha (Marty) Chen is a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and Co-Founder, Emeritus International Coordinator and Senior Advisor of the global network Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (www.wiego.org). An experienced development practitioner and scholar, her areas of specialization are employment, gender and poverty with a focus on the working poor in the informal economy. Before joining Harvard in 1987, she had two decades of resident work experience in Bangladesh and in India. Dr. Chen co-founded and, for twenty years, led the WIEGO network which is well known worldwide for its work to improve the status of the working poor in the informal economy through stronger organizations, improved statistics and research and a more favorable policy environment. Dr. Chen received a PhD in South Asia Regional Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.

Christophe Gauthier is cofounder at Guildeur: the 1st Worker Techwhose goal is to foster social endeavour in businesses, through peer-to-peer support and collaboration between worker representatives. Christophe has a 15-year tech experience from Orange to HP. He has been an advisor to French listed companies as a subject matter expert in corporate social responsibility. For the last 20 years, Christophe has helped countless firms to improve relations and agreements between employees and other stakeholders. Using a combination of open source software, new collaboration approaches, and a shared governance model, Guildeur aims at becoming a rent-free, digital commons, for a better future both for humans at work and our planet.

Fatimah Kari. Lecturer University of Malaya, Malaysia Professor Dr. Fatimah Kari earned a Bachelor’s degree from National University of Malaysia (UKM), a Master of Economics from the University of Leicester, UK and a PhD (Economics) from Mississippi State University, United States. She is formerly the director of the Centre for Poverty and Development Studies (CPDS), University of Malaya, former head of Department of Economics, former deputy Dean of Undergraduate and Post Graduate, Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya. She has published and presented many scholarly papers in the area of Environment and Poverty, Poverty Indexing and Environment and Growth. She has been a consultant for several consultancy project sponsored by the Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water (KeTTHA), Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE) and Economic Planning Unit, Prime Ministers Department, UNDP, Malaysia, JCorp and Ministry of Communication and Multimedia, Malaysia.

Maïmonatou Mar, phD, is the cofounder of Gribouilli, the French social venture empowering domestic workers. Gribouilli launched the first community for nannies in Paris. They are key workers but invisible: mainly middle-age women with migration backgrounds who suffered from isolation and the digital divide. Nearly a thousand nannies benefit from information, P2P learning, basic learning and soft skills class for their economic inclusion and access to decent work.Gribouilli offers leadership programs through an Ambassador program for nannies. Ambassadors of Gribouilli therefore collaborate with public-private partners to improve the public policies. They also develop a coop with more inclusive and accessible commercial services to the benefit of the families. Gribouilli is a 3yr multi-award winning organization (Prizes from Paris City, the Foundations JL Lagardère and Deloitte...). Maïmonatou is an A. de Rothschild Fellow, CXC/Ashoka Fellow and a 2020 Paris Talent.