What is New in Planning?

Abstract

Organized labour, once considered to be a key component of democratically managed political systems, was dismissed as a hindrance to economic and political modernization in the neo-liberal economy. As the size and influence of organized formal sector labour diminishes, this paper examines how unionization as an institutional form of labour organization is gaining popularity among informal workers in newly industrializing nations. Counteracting the impression that this unionization is outdated; the paper looks at this return of unionization and its significance for planners and concludes that this trend calls for more, not less planning, albeit of a different kind than used earlier for state-led industrialization.

Notes

For an excellent review of such criticism, see Baker et al. (1998).

In the USA, the percentage of unionized labor has declined to <10% (Bailey et al., 1993).

On the rise of Informal Sector Unions (ISU's), see ILO (1999/3).

The Self -Employed Women's Association (SEWA) was formed in December 1971. SEWA grew out of the Textile Labour Association (TLA) and was registered as a trade union in April 1972. For further details see http://www.sewa.org/about_us/history.asp

The ILO has documented case studies of trade unions in the informal economy in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. See ILO (1999/3), available at http://www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/actrav/pub/127/index.htm

For a review of a range of services, see Chen et al. (2007).

For data on international alliances of ISU's see the website of the Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) network at www.wiego.org

One example is the Textile Clothing and Footwear Union in Australia which is organizing home-workers producing footwear and the Timber and Woodworkers' Union and the General Agricultural Workers' Union, both in Ghana. For further details, see Gallin (1999).

One landmark example is when the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in India joined with other trade unions as well as non-governmental organizations to lobby for a social security bill for the informal sector. See http://www.sewa.org/newsletter/specialedition-new.htm

SEWA has over 400,000 members in five states in India. The Working Women's Forum (WWF), based in Chennai, has 250,000 members. The Union of Street Vendors and Homeworkers in the Republic of Moldovia now has 40,000 members and is affiliated with the national trade union confederation. The Forca Sindical is active in Brazil, and a Mexican Union of Street Vendors claims to have a million members. Ghana has at least 59,000 members in various organizations of the informal sector. For a thorough review of the data on ISU's worldwide see Birchall (2001) and (ILO, 1999/3).

See Peattie (1987) for a review of the debates among academic planners. After much debate, the ILO in 1991 has provided the following definition: ‘The informal sector consists of very small units producing and distributing goods and services, and consists largely of independent, self-employed producers who operate with little capital, utilize a low level of technology and skill, operate at a low level of productivity, and provide low and irregular income and employment. These units are informal in the sense that they are for the most part unregistered and unrecorded in official statistics; they tend to have little or no access to organized markets, to credit institutions, training institutions… they are often compelled by circumstances to operate outside the framework of law, and even when they are registered and respect certain aspects of law, they are almost invariably beyond the pale of social protection, labour legislation and protective measures at the workplace’ (ILO, 1991).

On the forging of alliances between FSUs and ISUs, see ILO (2002).

On the need to speak with one voice, see Jose (2002).

This argument is made in Bhatt (2006).

For details of both examples, see Bhatt (2006:81–98; 141–155).

The criticism of government for the hardship of informal sector participants emerged as early as the 1960s with the publication of the seminal article Turner (1965). It was Turner who coined the phrase: ‘The government has done so little with so much while the poor have done so much with so little’.

For a review of arguments against government, see Drabek (1987).

For a critique, see ILO (1999).

In the field of economic development, see Stiglitz (2006) and Tendler (1997). In sociology, see Evans (1997). In political science, see Houtzager and Moore (2001).

Fine (2005) raised this question in her interview with prominent labor union leaders in the USA.