Conference Agenda

Our research focuses on informal workers from the perspective of developing countries, using the case of one of the most vulnerable groups of workers: wastepickers from Brazil. The case of wastepickers reveals the limits and potential of labour regulation to include informal workers. Our main argument is that if the learning from limited experiments in Brazil in the last two decades is used to modify labour law and environmental policy, these changes could substantially improve the recycling of waste even as it creates humane and decent working conditions for wastepickers.

Despite the significant contribution to environmental sustainability and public health, of wastepicking, this form of work receives poor recognition in law and policy. Our study collected data from six award-winning cities during 2019, probing in four areas: (1) socioeconomic profile; (2) health and safety at work; (3) working conditions and (4) perceptions about work.

We find that wastepickers who were collectively organized into an association enjoyed much better working conditions than their counterparts who did not belong to a collective. Further, the most successful cases can be directly related to the polices of the municipal government. Some City governments supported wastepicker inclusion through policies such as creation of wastepicker associations, funding for training wastepickers, material support in the form of seed funding and donation of trucks for collecting recyclable waste, etc.

Our research suggests four main findings that can inform policy. First, it is possible to create decent work for the most vulnerable workers who are contributing to environmental sustainability. Second, despite these limited successes, many of these wastepicker associations struggle for survival. They have no formal recognition of their rights to access recyclable waste nor any rights to decent labour standards. Often associations are too small to negotiate a fair price for their sorted recyclable waste and are forced to sell at a discount to the middlemen. Third, if it were not for support and commitment from the local government they would not survive very long. Lastly, policy reforms in labour law alone cannot fully address the complex issue of creating decent work for such workers. In their case, it was coordination across multiple areas of policy that led to improvement in their working conditions: environmental policy, labour policy and social assistance policy. We may conclude that informal work can become decent work but it would need reforms in and coordination across various policy domains, not just labour policy.

1. Introduction

As advocated by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the reach of Labour Inspection, when a traditional model is adopted, which is based on the programming of individualised routine and reactive inspections (complaints), is limited to a restricted universe of organisations and workers, not being sufficient to achieve satisfactory enforcement of labour norms.

On the other hand, the strategic models of labour inspection with a proactive approach, focused on compliance and targets, according to the previous diagnosis of the causes of non-compliance and with the involvement and participation of different social actors through social dialogue and collaboration, constitute a robust strategy to amplify the reach and impact of labour inspection and contribute to long-term compliance with labour laws.

In this sense, the Special Sectorial Actions (SSA), embodied in Decree 10.854 of 10 November 2021, represent a strategic model with a proactive, preventive and collective approach, which is based on social dialogue for the prevention of work accidents and occupational diseases, as well as for the sanitation of labour irregularities, to promote decent work in Brazil.

2. Research question

Is it possible to improve the efficiency of labour inspections using new approaches, in terms of its capacity to remedy labour irregularities, especially compared to traditional models?

3. Methodology

Data available at the Radar SIT 1 were collected regarding the results of the actions to combat child labour carried out in Brazil from January 2021 to November 2022 and compared to the SSAs carried out in the state of Espírito Santo (ES), with the same theme, in the same period.

1- Information and Statistics Panel on Labour Inspection in Brazil. Available at: Radar SIT | Child Labour (economia.gov.br). Accessed on 26 Dec. 2022.

4. Contribution to literature and Findings

The analysis showed that, through the SSAs, 498 children and adolescents in irregular child labour situations were identified 2 , which corresponds to approximately 14% of the result achieved in the whole country (3,557 children and adolescents reached in irregular child labour situations), demonstrating the efficiency of this type of action and the possibility of replication in other inspections around the world.

Data available at: https://www.gov.br/trabalho-e-previdencia/pt-br/composicao/orgaos-especificos/secretaria-de-trabalho/inspecao/ano-fiscal-trabalhista-2021.pdf. Accessed on: 26 Dec. 2022.

To verify the realization of guaranteeing income replacement in case of a work accident, this article measured the reversibility index of the lawsuits filed against the Brazilian National Institute of Social Security (INSS), responsible for grant administratively the accidental benefits (accidental sickness benefit, retirement due to accidental disability and accident assistance), judged by the 16th and 17th Chambers of Public Law of the São Paulo Court of Justice (TJSP) in 2017 and 2018. These Chambers of Public Law have specific jurisdiction to judge occupational accidents cases. The article question is: What is the reversibility index of decisions of the INSS that deny accidental benefits by the Court of Justice of São Paulo? Index calculation had as components the division of the total number of judgments that reversed the decision of the INSS by the total number of judgments analyzed in the period, all of which were submitted to statistical analysis using the IBM SPSS Statistics software 20.0. The hypothesis of the existence of a high rate of reversal of the INSS negatives to the granting of the benefit was proved to be 72.5% in 2017 and 68.3% in 2018 for the accidental disability retirement benefit, 86.2% in 2017 and 85.6% in 2018 for the accident benefit and 77.8% in 2017 and 76.8% in 2018 of sickness accident benefit. A total of 4.960 (four thousand nine hundred sixty) judgments were analyzed, quantitatively using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences with 95% range of confidence and qualitatively by identifying the ratio decidendi of the decisions. The study showed that all decisions analyzed had unanimous judgments, despite disagreement on the interpretation of legal provisions between the judges and the Chambers. The analysis also confirmed that there is underreporting in the official occupational accident registration system, as disability retirement and sickness allowance were granted in 62% (sixty-two percent) and 69% (sixty-nine percent), respectively, of lawsuits in which Occupational Accident Report (CAT) were expressly not mentioned. The paper concludes that a review of the form of expert action of the INSS, with standardization of judicial understanding and legislative changes, is necessary to reduce the judicialization of occupational accidents and the rate of reversal of INSS administrative decisions by the judiciary.