SEWA: Organising Women in the Informal Economy

How the Self-Employed Women's Association built a union, a bank and cooperatives for women working outside formal jobs, and why it became a global model.

Traditional unions organise workers with a clear employer: factory workers, railway staff, teachers. But in India, most women work in the informal economy, as street vendors, home-based workers, farm labourers and waste pickers, often with no employer to bargain with. How can they organise?

The founding

In 1972, Ela Bhatt, a lawyer working with the Textile Labour Association in Ahmedabad, founded the Self-Employed Women’s Association, or SEWA. Registering a union of self-employed women was itself a struggle, since officials questioned whether workers without employers could form a union.

A different kind of union

SEWA combines struggle and development:

Collective bargaining and advocacy: negotiating with contractors and traders, and campaigning for vendors’ rights to public space.
SEWA Bank, founded in 1974, gives women savings accounts and loans in their own names.
Cooperatives for artisans, dairy producers, cleaners and others, helping members get fairer prices.
Social security: insurance, health care and childcare services.
Training and market access.

Achievements

SEWA grew to millions of members across several Indian states.
It campaigned for the Street Vendors Act, 2014, which protects vendors from arbitrary eviction.
It helped shape international recognition of home-based workers through an International Labour Organization convention in 1996.
Its model inspired organisations in other countries, and it co-founded global networks of informal workers.

Why it matters economically

Informal workers lack bargaining power individually; organising gives them a collective voice.
Access to finance in women’s names strengthens their position in households.
Cooperatives cut out middlemen, raising incomes.

Recent innovations

SEWA has piloted new protections, such as heat insurance for members who lose income during extreme heat.

The vegetable vendor

A vegetable vendor was regularly harassed and fined by local officials for selling on the pavement. Through SEWA, vendors organised, negotiated with the city and campaigned for legal protection. With a vending certificate, she can now sell without fear and has a savings account at SEWA Bank.

Thinking unions are only for formal employees

SEWA showed that self-employed and informal workers can organise, bargain and build shared institutions.

Key takeaways

Ela Bhatt founded SEWA in 1972 to organise self-employed women.
SEWA combines union advocacy with a bank, cooperatives and social security.
It campaigned for the Street Vendors Act, 2014.
It became a global model for organising informal workers.