Limit this search to....

Why Informal Workers Organize: Contentious Politics, Enforcement, and the State
Contributor(s): Hummel, Calla (Author)
ISBN: 0192847813     ISBN-13: 9780192847812
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
OUR PRICE:   $85.50  
Product Type: Hardcover
Published: February 2022
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Political Science | Civil Rights
- Political Science | Labor & Industrial Relations
Dewey: 331.873
LCCN: 2021937204
Physical Information: 0.8" H x 6" W x 9.1" (1.10 lbs) 224 pages
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
Informal workers make up over two billion workers or about 50% of the global workforce. Surprisingly, scholars know little about informal workers' political or civil society participation. An informal worker is anyone who holds a job and who does not pay taxes on taxable earnings, does not
hold a license for their work when one is required, or is not part of a mandatory social security system. For decades, researchers argued that informal workers rarely organized or participated in civil society and politics. However, millions of informal workers around the world start and join
unions. Why do informal workers organize? In countries like Bolivia, informal workers such as street vendors, fortune tellers, witches, clowns, gravestone cleaners, sex workers, domestic workers, and shoe shiners come together in powerful unions. In South Africa, South Korea, and India, national
informal worker organizations represent millions of citizens. The data in this book finds that informal workers organize in nearly every country for which data exists, but to varying degrees. This raises a related question: Why do informal workers organize in some places more than others? The
reality of informal work described in this book and supported by surveys in 60 countries, over 150 interviews with informal workers in Bolivia and Brazil, ethnographic data from multiple cities, and administrative data upends the conventional wisdom on the informal sector. The contrast between
scholarly expectations and emerging data underpin the central argument of the book: Informal workers organize where state officials encourage them to.