Homeworkers are mostly (up to 90 percent) women - the invisible workforce in global production chains. They machine garments, weave cloth, solder electronics, process food, make parts for cars, or pack goods. At best homeworkers face uncertainty regarding employment or social protection; at worst they are specifically excluded. Would regularisation provide benefits such as decent wages and social security?

Two incomes are needed to pull a family out of poverty. Women turn to homebased work because it is flexible: it can be combined with caring for children and other dependants or agricultural work and for women with young children it is often the only alternative. Manufacturing industries, on the hand, demand increasing flexibility and rapid turnaround times from suppliers - often a week (fashion items) to ten days. Garment retailers place smaller orders and only when a specific line is needed.

International competition also means intense pressure to cut costs: companies in Bangkok closed factories due to competition from Vietnam and China and the economic slump, giving work instead to homeworkers. Yet, even craft homeworkers are increasingly dependent on traders for orders, designs, raw materials or loans and are more akin to piece-rate workers. Yet they are denied basic working rights such as a minimum wage or regular work.

The garment industry in Australia outsources most of its work. The Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union (TCFUA) ensures basic working rights for homeworkers through legal protection, the FairWear consumer campaign, a code of practice, and involvement in union structures. B&Q's code of conduct with subcontractors is at an early stage of implementation and in India B&Q has set up a credit and savings group with women making doormats from coconut fibre.

Most homeworkers are piece-rate workers rather than self-employed contractors and should be entitled to basic working rights. For own-account workers, inappropriate regulations often exist - impossible for homebased workers, often the poorest, to meet. Including homeworkers in supply chain governance is no easy task given the complexity of the situation. Firstly, companies need to acknowledge the existence of homeworkers and the contribution they make to production. Further steps include:

• Supporting homebased workers' organisations and ensuring they are consulted in the development of codes.
• Ensuring codes acknowledge the contribution homeworkers make to production by recognising their entitlement to employment rights.
• Ensuring that women homeworkers, the poorest of all, do not lose out from provisions to improve conditions in global production chains.
• Supporting independent women's collectives which market independently, to reduce dependence on traders and merchants.
• Examining the possibility that companies might shorten their supply chains and cut out informal practices.

id21 Research Highlight: 3 April 2001

Further Information:
Jane Tate
HomeNet
Office 20, 30-38 Dock Street
Leeds LS10 1JF
UK

Contact the contributor: homenet@gn.apc.org

HomeNet, UK

Other related links:
Insights #36

Women Working Worldwide is part of an international network of women worker and consumer organisations

Clean Clothes Campaign features links to European groups and a focus on Asia

Oxfam's Clothes Code Campaign focuses on the garment industry