Home-​Based Work and Home-​Based Workers (1800–​2021)

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Studies in Global Social History

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 Home-​Based Work
and Home-​Based
Workers (1800–​2021)

Edited by

Malin Nilsson, Indrani Mazumdar and Silke Neunsinger

LEIDEN | BOSTON

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 This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-nd 4.0 license,
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This book was realised with the support of Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (grant number F17-​1341), the Lund
University Book Fund, and the Jan Wallanders och Tom Hedelius Stiftelse (grant number W2015-​0375:1).

Cover illustration: The broken line: Jeans –​I sew the best I could, by Frida Hållander, 2018. Technique: sewing
and embroidery. Material: cotton. Photo Frida Hållander, 2018.

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Copyright 2022 by Malin Nilsson, Indrani Mazumdar and Silke Neunsinger. Published by Koninklijke Brill
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Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink,
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Contents


Acknowledgements ix

List of Figures, Tables and Graphs x

Notes on Contributors xiv

Saludo A Las Trabajadoras En Domicilio xx

Greetings to Home-​based Workers xxi

 Introduction
History–​Visibility–​Recognition–​Organizing 1
Malin Nilsson, Indrani Mazumdar, Silke Neunsinger and Nina Trige
Andersen

part 1

1 
Introduction Continuity and Change
Gender, Place, and Skill Formation in Home-​based Production 27
Malin Nilsson

2 
Reading the Margins of Business Censuses
The Garment Industry and Home-​Based Industrial Work in Sweden and
Finland, 1930s to 1960s 31
Laura Ekholm

3 
“A Virtuous Woman Knows How to Sew”
Labour, Craft, and Domesticity in Buenos Aires During the 1850s and
1860s 52
Gabriela Mitidieri

4 
Sewing at Home in Greece, 1870s to 1930s
A Global History Perspective 74
Leda Papastefanaki

5 
Women’s Home-​Based Work in Istanbul’s Garment Industry
Gender Inequalities and Industrial Work 96
Saniye Dedeoğlu

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vi Contents

part 2

6 
Introduction between Ban and Human Rights
The Regulation of Home-​Based Work Since the Twentieth Century 117
Silke Neunsinger

7 
From Industrial Evil to Decent Work
The ilo and Changing Perspectives towards Home-​Based Labour 122
Eileen Boris

8 
Realising Rights for Homeworkers in Global Value Chains 148
Marlese von Broembsen and Jenna Harvey

9 
Home Work in Thailand
Challenges to Formalization 172
Narumol Nirathron

part 3

10 
Introduction between Citizens’ and Workers’ Rights
Struggles for the Recognition of Home Workers as Workers 197
Silke Neunsinger

11 
Genealogies and Assemblages of Resistance
Jeanne Bouvier’s Struggles in ‘Le Travail à Domicile’ 203
Maria Tamboukou

12 
Industrial Home Work and Fordism in Western Europe
Women’s Activism, Labour Legislation and Union’s Mobilization in Golden
Age Italy, 1945–​75 227
Eloisa Betti

13 
Refusing Invisibility
Women Workers in Subcontracted Work in a South Indian City 245
K. Kalpana

14 
Home-​based Workers
Organizing from Local to Global 267
Chris Bonner

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Contents vii


Saludo a Las Mujeres Trabajadoras/​Greeting to All Working
Women 277
Patylu

part 4

15 
Introduction Perspectives on Contemporary Home-​based Work 281
Indrani Mazumdar

16 
Contemporary Digital Home Work
Old Challenges, Different Solutions? 288
Janine Berg

17 
Dynamics of Contemporary Capitalist Accumulation and the Prospects
for Home Work in the Indian Garment Industry 308
Archana Prasad

18 
Are We Not Being Entrepreneurial? Exploring the Home/​Work
Negotiation of South Asian Immigrant Women Entrepreneurs in
Canada 329
Srabani Maitra

19 
Home-​based Manufacturing Work for Women in India
Drivers and Dimensions 347
Sona Mitra

part 5

20 
Artwork 381
Frida Hållander and Åsa Norman

21 
Postscript: Launching an International Network of Home-​based
Workers During the covid-​1 9 Crisis 385
Chris Bonner, Jane Barrett, Janhavi Dave


Shared Dreams 390
Patylu

Bibliography 393
Index 416
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Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the support and much more of
not only the contributors, but many other individuals, institutions, and organ-
isations who worked together for the 2018 conference at Stockholm that gave
rise to the idea of the book, and then helped develop that idea up to the stage
of final publication in 2021. We would like to thank Jane Barrett and Nina Trige
Andersen for all their partnership and work put in before, during and after the
conference, as well as their contribution towards making the book relevant and
up to date. We also thank Union to Union, abf, and if Metall in Sweden for
the interest and support they gave to the conference that enabled the coming
together of activists and academics that has made this book what it is.
The Labour movements archive and library (arab) in Stockholm, Centre
for Women’s Development Studies in Delhi (cwds), and Women in Informal
Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (​w iego), three different types
of institutions made for a memorable collaboration both for the conference
and the cross continental thinking together that has gone into this book.
Institutional collaboration between arab and cwds, and cooperation from
the Economic History department at Lund University, allowed for meetings
among editors in Stockholm, New Delhi, and Lund that facilitated collective
thinking and editorial solidarity that is so much a part of this book. Grants
from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond made it possible to arrange the conference
on home-​based work in Stockholm in May 2018; Lund university book fund
helped us publish the book open access, the Jan Wallanders och Tom Hedelius
Stiftelse has given Malin some time to work.
We would like to thank Janhavi Dave, Chris Bonner, and Jane for their willing
promptness in contributing a post-​script even as the pandemic raged and posed
new challenges. To Indira Chandrasekhar of Tulika, we express our appreciation
for great copyediting. To Jonas Söderqvist for his excellent job with the index
of this book. We would like to thank Barbro Budin for helping us to get in con-
tact with so many of those who have been valuable to this process. We would
also like to thank the people at Brill who have helped us to get this book on the
road. Thank you Alessandra Giliberto for kindly answering all our questions;
thank you to the anonomous reviewer for useful comments. We would also like
to thank Marcel van der Linden for encouraging this book project from the start.
At last, we are so happy that HomeNet international let us be part of their
first congress. Your fight along with many others has been a main source for
motivation and inspiration for this book. With love and solidarity, thank you.

Lund, New Delhi and Stockholm in June 2021

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Figures, Tables and Graphs

Figures

0.1 
Mayuri Suepwong, a single mother, took up home-​based work in order to look
after her children while generating income. Her daughter, Chamaiporn, helps
her after school. Like other home-​based workers, she sometimes has to work
long hours to meet tight deadlines with irregular pay. Photo: Paula Bronstein/​
Getty Images Reportage BANGKOK 2
1.1 
At the workshop of the seamstress Meropi Meraskenti in Kalloni, Lesvos
island, c. 1930. Source: Christos Tragellis, Η Καλλονή της Λέσβου μέσα από παλιές
φωτογραφίες (Athens, 2009) 29
1.2 
Ahmedabad, India: Bhavna Ben Ramesh sews handmade purses out of her
home. Her work is essential to her family’s income, though women’s home-​
based work often goes unrecognized. Bhavna joined the Self Employed
Women’s Organization (sewa), a trade union that works to secure the rights of
workers in the informal sector, and Mahila Housing Trust (mht), a ngo that
improves the housing conditions of poor, informally employed women, and
received training on how to better market her products and to whom. Photo
Credit: Paula Bronstein/​Getty Images Reportage 30
4.1 
The model “Household” sewing machine with a “Family” buttonhole
attachment. Source: United States Sewing Machines Times, 29 June 1889 84
4.2 
Advertisement of the Belgian house Sinave-​Mignot, which specialized in
different kinds of small machines for home industries. Source: Catalogue
illustré de l’exposition internationale du petit outillage avec la description des
machines exposés (Ghent, 1904) 85
4.3 
Advertisement of Singer sewing machine for families in the daily press of
Athens, c. 1910 86
4.4 
Advertisement of the commercial firm Benmayor, Molho and Cohen in
Thessaloniki, for sewing and knitting machines for home industries and
manufacturers, c. 1930. Source: Γενικός Εμπορικός Οδηγός Θεσσαλονίκης
(Τhessaloniki, 1930) 87
4.5 
School of embroidery by Singer in Lesvos island, c. 1930. Source: Filia Museum
in Lesvos 90
7.1 
Homebased workers representatives during the discussion on Supply Chains
at the International Labour Conference in Geneva in June 2016 where a small
group of homebased workers participated with wiego 140
9.1 
BANGKOK, THAILAND: Rattana Chalermchai works at her home-​based sewing
machine where she is able to enjoy the company of her granddaughter, Silisak.

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Figures, Tables and Graphs xi

A former factory worker, Rattana was laid off during the economic crisis in
1997. She now supplies hand-​made flip-​flops to a resort. She is a long-​time
member of HomeNet Thailand and has contributed to several policy campaigns
for informal workers, including the Universal Healthcare Coverage Scheme.
Photo: Paula Bronstein/​Getty Images Reportage 177
10.1 
May Day Rally organized by the Home Based Women Workers Federation in
Pakistan in 2020 during the pandemic with social distancing 198
14.1 
Discussing the home-based workers group in Tanzania called uwake at an
Africa Regional Workshop with participants from five countries, organized with
support from wiego. Photo: Chris Bonner 273
15.1 
Ahmedabad, India: Rookmani Ram Naryan (left) and her daughter, Kavita
Harshiresh Yemul, spend many hours each day on the floor of their small
home hand rolling Indian-​style cigarettes called bidi. Home-​based workers
such as Rookmani and Kavita, both members of the Self Employed Women’s
Association (sewa), a trade union for poor, self-​employed women in the
informal sector, are vulnerable to exploitation by middlemen and suppliers.
Photo: Paula Bronstein/​Getty Images Reportage 284
20.1 
Exhibition at The Labour Movement’s Archives and Library, in
Stockholm: Sewing Factory Sisters! Öxabäck if –​Without you no tomorrow, by
Åsa Norman and Frida Hållander, 2018. Photo Frida Hållander, 2018 382
20.2 
Öxabäck if, Courtesy of the Öxabäck if museum. Photo Sigge Bengtsson, 1968.
Reproduction: Frida Hållander och Åsa Norman 2016 383
21.1 
A group of Nubian home-based workers near Entebbe, Uganda receiving
food relief in October 2020 organized by HomeNet International during the
pandemic 386

Tables

2.1 Proprietors, employees and home workers in the Swedish ready-​to-​wear

garment industry, bespoke tailoring and seamstresses, 1931 and 1951 44
2.2 Estimated numbers and proportions of home workers in the textile and
garment sectors of Sweden, 1931 and 1951 46
2.3 Proprietors, employees, and home workers in the Finnish garment industry,
1953 and 1964 49
5.1 Garment ateliers in Istanbul 102
9.1 Options for contribution payment under section 40 of the Social Security Act
B.E. 2533 (1990) 184
13.1 
Age profile of sample respondents (Otteri, North Chennai) 252
13.2 
Marital status of sample respondents (Otteri, North Chennai) 257

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xii  Figures, Tables and Graphs

13.3 
Monthly earnings of sample respondents from appalam work (Otteri, North
Chennai) 258
14.1 
Regional networks of home-​based workers and members 271
17.1 
Number of units across key clusters, 2009 315
17.2 
Growth rates within apparel value chains (cagr) in select countries 319
17.3 
Monthly real wages in 15 of the top 21 apparel exporters to the United States, in
2001 currency 323
17.4 
Estimated unit cost of production of selected items, 2013 324
19.1 
Change in employment in select rural manufacturing sectors, 1993–​94 to
2011–​12 362
19.2 
Change in employment in select urban manufacturing sectors, 1993–​94 to
2011–​12 367
19.3 
Share of home-​based manufacturing work in India, 2011–​12 371
19.4 
Rural women workers in select home-​based manufacturing industries,
2011–​12 374
19.5 
Urban women workers in select home-​based manufacturing industries,
2011–​12 375

Graphs

16.1 
Reasons for not doing more crowd work currently (percentage by
category) 293
16.2 
Distribution of hourly paid and unpaid work among workers by platform, 2017
(in US$) 296
16.3 
Distribution of crowd workers, by platform and gender 297
16.4 
Age distribution of crowd workers, all platforms 298
16.5 
Educational levels of crowd workers (percentage by category) 299
16.6 
Most important reason for doing crowd work, by platform (percentage by
category) 300
16.7 
Gender differences in care responsibilities 302
16.8 
Gender differences in offline labour market activity 302
16.9 
Gender differences in reasons for crowd-​working 303
19.1 
Average annual rate of growth of output by sectors, 1990–​2012 (%)  357
19.2 
Sectoral contributions to employment and gdp, 1993 to 2012 (%)  357
19.3 
Output elasticity of employment by sector, 1993–​94 to 2011–​12  358
19.4 
Distribution of usual status rural non-​farm women workers  359
19.5 
Distribution of usual status urban non-​farm women workers  360
19.6 
Distribution of rural women workers in manufacturing employment, 1993–​94
and 2011–​12  361

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Figures, Tables and Graphs xiii

19.7 
Distribution of urban women workers in manufacturing employment, 1993–​94
and 2011–​12  365
19.8 
Distribution of rural women workers in home-​based work in manufacturing,
2011–​12  372
19.9 
Distribution of urban women workers in home-​based work in manufacturing,
2011–​12  373

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Notes on Contributors

Nina Trige Andersen

is a freelance journalist and historian (MA from Roskilde University) affiliated
with Society for Labour History (sfah) in Denmark. She writes about labour,
migration, unionizing, women’s lives, and cross-​border movements, histori-
cally and contemporary, in the Nordic countries and Southeast Asia. Her lat-
est book is ‘Labor Pioneers. Economy, Labor, and Migration in Filipino-​Danish
Relations 1950–​2015’, Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2019.

Jane Barret
took over the Directorship of the Organising and Representation Programme
of wiego in early 2016. Jane has worked in workers’ organisations since the
early 1980s. These include the South African Transport and Allied Workers
Union (satawu), the International Transport Workers Federation (itf) and
the Congress of South African Trade Unions (cosatu). Jane has an Honours
Degree in Industrial Sociology from the University of Witwatersrand and
a Masters in Philosophy from soas, University of London. She is currently
a research associate in the Society, Work and Development Institute at the
University of Witwatersrand.

Janine Berg
is Senior Economist at the International Labour Office in Geneva, Switzerland,
where she conducts research on the economic effects of labour laws as well
as provides technical assistance to ilo constituents on policies for generating
jobs and improving working conditions. She is the lead author of the recent
ilo report, Non-​standard employment around the world: Understanding chal-
lenges, shaping prospects. She received her Ph.D. from the New School for
Social Research in New York, USA.

Eloisa Betti
is Adjunct Professor of labour at the University of Bologna. She serves as co-​
coordinator of the Feminist Labour History Working Group of the European
Labour History Network (elhn) and Scientific Advisor of the Emilia-​Romagna
Network of Udi Archives.

Chris Bonner
worked as wiego’s Organization and Representation Programme Director
between 2004–​2016, supporting informal workers’ organizations, contributing

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Notes on Contributors xv

to research and writing on organizing in the informal economy, and producing

worker education materials. She is currently a wiego Programme Advisor, and
has been working with home-​based worker representatives from five regions
to develop Home-​Net International, a global network of home-​based workers.
Prior to joining wiego she worked as organizer and educator in the South
African trade union movement.

Eileen Boris
is Hull Professor in the Department of Feminist Studies and an affiliate pro-
fessor in the History, Black Studies, and Global Studies Departments at the
University of California, Santa Barbara, specializing on home-​based work
and the racialized gendered state. Her latest book is Making the Woman
Worker: Precarious Labor and the Fight for Global Standards, 1919–​2019 [2019].
She was President of the International Federation for Research in Women’s
History, 2015–​2020.

Patricia Coñoman Carrillo (Patylu)

has been a trade unionist since 1975. She belongs to an indigenous community
in Chile. She was President of Contextil (union of textile workers), and her
union representative in cut (national union federation) for 22 years-​being the
first woman representative in cut after the dictatorship. She is now a home-​
based workers’ representative of Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores
en Domicilio, conatrado, and a member of the International Working
Committee of HomeNet International.

Janhavi Dave
is the International Coordinator of HomeNet International. Prior to this she
was the International Coordinator of HomeNet South Asia for over five years.
There she played a key role in expanding its membership, ensuring good gov-
ernance and increasing accountability. She also played an important role in
the Working Group that led the process towards the formation of HomeNet
International. Janhavi has worked with women workers in the informal econ-
omy for over fourteen years, and holds a Master’s degree in Social Work from
the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

Saniye Dedeoğlu
is Professor of Social Policy in the Department of Labour Economics and
Industrial Relations at the University of Mugla, Turkey and was a Marie Curie
Fellow at the Center for Research in Ethnic Relations at Warwick University, UK.
She is the author of Women Workers in Turkey: Global Industrial Production in

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xvi  Notes on Contributors

Istanbul (2007) and Migrants, Work and Social Integration. Women’s Labour in
the Turkish Ethnic Economy (2014).

Laura Ekholm
is Postdoctoral Researcher fellow in the faculty of social sciences with a spe-
cialization in economic and social history at the University of Helsinki. She is
currently working on the history of the ready-​to-​wear industry in Sweden and
Finland. She is country editor for Scandinavian Economic History Review.

Frida Hållander
is a craft artist and holds a Ph.D. from Konstfack and hdk-​Valand The Faculty
of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Her doctoral thesis Whose Hand is Making? A Sister-​Text about Craft, Class,
Feminism and the Will to Contest (2019), includes a case study which addresses
the thematics of textile and the collective story of women that have worked in
sewing factories and homebased industry.

Jenna Harvey
coordinates wiego’s Focal Cities Initiative, which provides research, capacity-​
building and advocacy support to informal workers’ organizations in five cit-
ies. She is an urban planner by training, and spent several years working with
feminist organizations on community development initiatives in Costa Rica
and Nicaragua prior to joining wiego. Her specific areas of expertise are in
participatory planning, critical education, and inclusive models of urban eco-
nomic development.

K. Kalpana
is Associate Professor in the Humanities and Social Sciences Department, iit
Madras. Her research and academic publications are in the intersecting fields
of gender, poverty, microcredit, women’s work in the informal sector, women’s
trade unions and collective action in solidarity economies. Her book ‘Women,
Microfinance and the State in Neo-​liberal India’ was published by Routledge
in 2017.

Srabani Maitra
is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Glasgow,
UK. She holds a PhD in Adult Education and Community Development from
OISE/University of Toronto, Canada. Her research focuses on the issues of edu-
cation/learning, workplace learning, race and racism, skill and transnational
migration.

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Notes on Contributors xvii

Indrani Mazumdar
is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Women’s Development Studies, New Delhi.
Her research focus has been on gender, labour, migration in India. Her publi-
cations include ‘Homebased Workers in 21st century India’, cwds, 2018 and
Women Workers and Globalization: Emergent Contradictions in India Street,
Kolkata (2007), which has a chapter study of home-​based workers in Delhi.

Gabriela Mitidieri
is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Buenos
Aires, researching a dissertation about labor experiences of tailors, dressmakers
and seamstresses in Buenos Aires City (1848–​1870), for which she had received
a scholarship from the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research.
She works at the Interdisciplinary Institute of Gender Studies (University of
Buenos Aires), she is a member of the Social History and Gender institute’s
group and she is the editorial assistant of Revista Mora, the institute’s annual
scientific journal. She has published papers on several Latin American histori-
cal journals. She also works as a History teacher.

Sona Mitra
is Principal Economist at the ‘Initiative for what works to advance Women
and Girls in the Economy’ (IWWAGE) - An initiative of LEAD at Krea
University, India. Sona has previously worked with several government and
non-government think-tanks and research centres including the Centre for
Women’s Development Studies (CWDS). She has been an independent con-
sultant with multilateral organisations working on women’s empowerment
and has served as member and technical adviser to the Committee on Gender
Responsive Budgeting in India, Ministry of Women and Child Development,
Government of India. She was also adjunct faculty at Ambedkar University,
Delhi till recently, teaching Labour and Development under the Master’s
in Economics program. Sona regularly publishes articles in peer-reviewed
journals, chapters in books, and opinion pieces in leading newspapers and
magazines.

Silke Neunsinger
is Director of Research at the Swedish Labour Movement Archives and
Library. She gained her Ph.D in 2001 at the department of History Uppsala
University and is since 2009 associate professor in economic history. She
has worked extensively on feminist labour history, global labour history and
methodology. She is also the editor of the Swedish labour history journal
Arbetarhistoria.

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xviii  Notes on Contributors

Malin Nilsson
is a teacher and researcher at the Economic History Department at Lund
University, Sweden. Her current research is focused around gender, textile pro-
duction and early processes of industrialization. Her doctoral thesis: “Taking
work home: Labour dynamics of women industrial homeworkers in Sweden
during the second industrial revolution” won the Rudolf Meidner-​award for
studies in the history of the trade union movement.

Narumol Nirathron
is Associate Professor in Labour Development and Welfare at the Faculty
of Social Administration, Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand. Her
research focuses on informal workers, informality and social policy. She is cur-
rently exploring the issue of informality in street food vending in Bangkok.

Åsa Norman
is a textile artist educated at hdk Steneby, Dals Långed, Sweden, and Konstfack,
Stockholm, Sweden. Her work deals mainly with how different female organ-
izations and formations have been formed socially and politically throughout
history, but also in the present. She is often researching how ways of working
within the field of textile can organize acts of resistance.

Leda Papastefanaki
is Associate Professor of Economic and Social History at the University of
Ioannina and Collaborating Faculty Member at the Institute for Mediterranean
Studies –​ forth. Her research concerns the social and economic history of
industrialisation and labour in the Mediterranean context, social history of
technology, gender history, urban history.

Archana Prasad
is Professor at the Centre for Informal Sector and Labour Studies, jnu. She
specializes in research on the contemporary history of adivasi livelihoods,
labour and resistance, women and labour, environmental and labour history.
She has also been helping many grassroots organisations in their work with
homebased workers.

Marlese von Broembsen

is the Director of wiego’s Law Programme and has a Masters Degree in
Development Studies and Law Degrees from the Universities of Cape Town
and Harvard Law School. Previously she convened a Masters Programme in

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Notes on Contributors xix

Social Justice at the University of Cape Town. She writes on global value chains,
labour law and informal employment.

Maria Tamboukou
is Professor of Feminist Studies at the University of East London, UK. Her
research activity develops in the areas of feminist theories, narrative analytics
and archival research. Writing histories of the present is the central focus of
her work, currently configured as an assemblage of feminist genealogies.

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 n

Saludo A Las Trabajadoras En Domicilio

Las veo día a día trabaja que trabaja con el pie en el pedalSon mujeres
trabajadoras que trabajan y trabajan encerradas en el hogar,
Son mujeres invisibles. Que solo quieren trabajar y
Ser reconocidas como tal

Son las nuevas formas del modelo neoliberal, las sacaron de las
empresas
Para enquistarlas en su comunidad,
No saben de descanso, trabajan día y noche.
Produce que produce, para la empresa formal.

Les dicen que son emprendedoras, para mantenerlas en la invisibilidad,

Pero son mujeres trabajadoras, que trabajan en su hogar
Sin tener derechos de seguridad social,
No tienen vacaciones como todas las demás.

E; trabajo en domicilio no es nuevo ni formal

Hoy con mucho orgullo nos podemos pronunciar
Tenemos sindicatos a nivel nacional, y seremos
Reconocidas como todas las demás.

Para eso nos organizamos para salir de la invisibilidad

Junto con aliados que nos socorrieron a recuperar dignidad
A salir de cuatro paredes de nuestro hogar.
Hoy decimos estamos vigentes.

Y a este Congreso las venimos a saludar

Somos la trabajadoras en domicilio
Que organizadas, venimos a participar
Para hacer más fuerte la organización sindical

patylu

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newgenprepdf

Greetings to Home-​based Workers

I see them day in, day out; with the foot on the pedal
Women home-​based workers, who do their job locked in homes,
They are invisible women who just want to work and
be recognized as such.

These are the new forms of the neoliberal model,

They were taken away from enterprises and placed within communities,
They do not know about rest, and work all day & night.
Producing and producing, for the formal enterprise.

They are told they’re entrepreneurs, but are kept in invisibility,

They are working women, who work home-​based and have no social
security or rights,
They do not have vacations, like other workers with rights.

Home-​based work is neither new or formal

Today we can proudly pronounce ourselves,
As we have unions at the national level,
and we will be recognized as other workers alike

This is why we organize, to get out of invisibility

Together with allies who have helped us recover our dignity
We leave the four walls of our home, and
Today we are here.

We come to this Congress to salute

We are Home-​based Workers
Organized, we are here to participate and
To strengthen our union

patylu

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