• Work and employment

Work and employment

This paper discusses the gendered nature of measures such as international labour standards, decent work approach and corporate social responsibility, and highlights its implications for women workers in developing countries. It is primarily a study of the existing literature, both academic and official - in this area.

The author says historically, women workers hold a marginal position in discussions on workers’ rights. Instead, such rights have been developed with male, full-time and regular employment as the model. For a feminist analysis a central question is how these measures impact the conditions of women workers in both formal and informal sectors.

The paper shows that there is no unified feminist position on the inclusion of labour standards in trade policy. However, it is possible to extract some core feminist concerns relating to core labour standards, decent work and corporate social responsibility. They include:

• core labour standards, as well as CSR schemes, only relate to work in the formal sector and, therefore, do not cover a majority of women’s work – which is taking place outside the formal sector
• what has been named ‘core labour standards’ excludes many central concerns articulated by women workers
• in relation to formal sector work, there are still many constraints for women in getting involved in the forums that define workers’ rights (including government bodies, trade unions and corporations)
• measures which do not challenge the underlying causes of gender discrimination risk upholding gender divisions and oppression as well as spreading the perception among policymakers that gender issues are being adequately addressed

The paper also says that there are many questions regarding the effectiveness of self-regulatory voluntary schemes, such as CSR through codes of conduct. These include:

• codes of conduct only address formal regulated employment. Hence, work in the informal sector is outside their scope
• issues relating to implementation, enforcement and effective monitoring of the codes are of crucial importance when evaluating their impact for women workers. It is not enough to rely on corporations to self-regulate compliance of the codes
• codes are sensitive to issues covered by the media in developed countries, and there is a substantial risk that what is covered in the codes reflects the desires of consumers in developed countries rather than the needs of women workers in developing countries
• women workers need to be involved in the process of drafting the codes in order for them to also cover issues prioritised by women workers

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