Informal Workers: When No One Watching, No One Cares – Walmart & Domestics

Labor Organizing Organizing WalMart

New Orleans  In the modern workforce economy of informal workers, contingent employees, and endless layers of subcontracting, both domestically and internationally, the obvious conclusion is that when no one is watching, no one cares, and, perhaps worse, no one is ever accountable.  This is not just a “race to the bottom,” but deliberate strategies to …

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Non-Standard Workers are the New Informal Workforce in Japan

ACORN ACORN International Citizen Wealth Ideas and Issues Labor Organizing Organizing

New Orleans   Casual, temporary, irregular (Korea), part-time, and informal are all terms of art in different countries describing everywhere essentially the same global workforce phenomena in the race to the bottom for public and corporate employers sweating labor from workers on a come-as-you-are, no benefits, we-will-call-you-whenever-we-need-you basis.  We learned from hours of intensive dialogue with …

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Building the Informal Workers Union in Bengaluru and the Health Camp

ACORN International Labor Organizing Organizing

Bengaluru   For several years in Bengaluru (Bangalore) our main focus has been organizing informal workers into unions, not because it’s easy, but because it’s necessary.  Informal workers in construction, domestic work, street vending or hawking, and wastepicking in the state of Karnataka cannot obtain identification cards and therefore ration cards unless their employer or their union …

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