Informal Workers Deserve a Voice – CityLab

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informal economy, street vending

A collaboration between Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) and WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, finds that more inclusive approaches are crucial – and beneficial – as cities cannot become more equal or more economically productive if they exclude the vast majority of their workforce, especially the working poor.

What do these informal workers need to become more productive? Street vendors need public space in good locations to vend. Waste pickers need the right to bid for public procurement contracts to collect, sort and recycle waste. Home-based workers need equitable access to core public services. With these needs met, they can be even more productive and have greater security as they contribute to the city’s economy. In “Including the Excluded,” the authors examine innovative ways some cities have found to work with home-based workers, street vendors and waste pickers that can be replicated around the globe.

Four key recommendations emerge from these examples of positive integration:

1. Increase informal workers’ access to public services, public spaces and public procurement. To better harness and encourage economic growth, city governments and local officials should acknowledge the economic contribution informal workers make to the urban economy and reduce harassment and penalization. Cities should provide core public services to informal workers to make their workplaces more productive; grant regulated access to public space; and allow organizations of informal workers to compete for public procurement.
2. Reform laws and regulations so they support informal workers. City governments and local officials should make it easier for the informal self-employed to register their businesses, as well as make taxation progressive and transparent, and assess what taxes and operating fees informal workers already pay. And they should extend benefits to workers in exchange for paying taxes.
3. Include informal worker leaders in participatory policymaking and rule-setting processes. Cities should integrate informal economy activities into local economic development plans and urban land allocation plans. Informal settlements are often thriving industrial hubs and house many home-based businesses. Cities should also recognize and protect natural markets for vendors, and recognize that waste pickers contribute to cleaning streets, reclaiming recyclables and reducing carbon emissions.
4. Support coalitions for change. All of the inclusive approaches highlighted in the paper were brought about by coalitions for change comprised of organizations of informal workers, supported by activist allies. Coalitions for change help monitor and highlight the situation on the ground, create awareness with the media, organize policy dialogues and provide technical assistance to advocacy campaigns.

Inside the impossible life of a New York street vendor

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street vending

 

New York tells itself a story. It goes like this. We are sharp-elbowed bastards who live in filth, surrounded by sewer rats, but with enough chutzpah, drive and determination, any of us can rise high enough to scrape the sky. It’s a myth, of course, and like all myths, it contains a narrow shard of truth. But with each year that shard shrinks, under the weight of gentrification, corporations and police.

Source: Inside the impossible life of a New York street vendor | US news | The Guardian

Michael Karem Artist, French Quarter 09/20/05

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job, New Orleans, street vending

There is a place called Jackson Square which there’s no place like it in the whole of the United States, except in Europe. Actually there is a place where like, as an artist, you don’t have to be in a gallery. You can get a license from the City, and you can sell all the places you want to. It’s first come, first served, in this square, called Jackson Square. The city of New Orleans is a tourist city, so most artists, that’s how they make their living. I’ve been doing this for four years. I don’t have to work for anybody. I pay my food and I pay my bed.
In New Orleans, the culture is very vibrant. I’m talking in terms of an artist, as an artist, you know. It’s a very inspirational city from an artist’s position. The people, you know, it’s like you pull different kind of people from all over this country, people from New York, Chicago, Caribbean, African, you put them in one place, and you get the kind of feelings you get in New Orleans. I think, I guess I can describe it in one word. I like the culture. It’s a very vibrant culture.

Originally I was born in Lagos, Nigeria, West Africa. I went to high school in Nigeria, and I went to college in Paris, France. Since I left France, I came to this country; I lived in New York for some time. I lived in Boston, and Boston is the best city that I like. From Boston — I lived in Boston for five years — from Boston I moved to Denver. While I was in Denver, I was in my art part time and I was working part-time. Actually, the reason I came to New Orleans, like most of the people that buy art from me, focus always on jazz. Most of the people that buy art from me, have been to New Orleans, they always say you should go to New Orleans, good for your art, go to New Orleans. So four years ago, I went to New Orleans to visit, and I was like, “Wow, this is where I need to be.” I wandered about New Orleans. When I first moved here, at first it reminds me of Paris, it reminds me of Paris. It’s just very European.

Source: Alive in Truth: The New Orleans Disaster Oral History & Memory Project

Words to vend by

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street vending

A sign on Royal Street posted by the street poet.