…Because my husband’s income is very low it is not enough for our family to survive, so I must keep this job… I am very fast at sewing, but my rate of pay is still very low as the piece rate is low. I usually can get about $6 an hour. When I first started working at home I was actually getting $8-9 an hour because I was fast. The boss was surprised that I was so fast, so he reduced the rate he paid me for future orders of the same style.
(Australian Homeworker ‘Winnie’s Story’ – recorded by FairWear)

Commonly suggested improvements (Homeworkers Worldwide – 2004) made by homeworkers include:

• increasing piece rates and prices paid for work;
• wanting assistance in finding regular work, continuity of work and income.
• accessing and conducting of regular training on a range of issues;
• needing a concerned body, organisation they can go to for assistance and support;
• availability of other forms of employment;
• accessing markets for their products, and loans;
• skills development to allow them to diversify into other work areas;
• accessing work directly (eliminate intermediaries); and,
• establishing a homeworker organisation.

Through the United Nations system, governments have developed a number of ‘human rights instruments’. In addition, there is the International Labour Organisation (ILO), to which Australia belongs. It is tripartite in the sense that employers, workers (unions) and governments attend meetings and participate in decision-making. The ILO sets international labour standards in the form of conventions on particular matters.

JustAct is calling on the Commonwealth of Australia to accede (‘sign on’) to the ILO – C177 Home Work Convention. The Convention sets out minimum requirements for governments to undertake and provides a guide to the development of national laws that need to be enacted. The Convention defines homework, who homeworkers are and promotes equality of treatment; therefore reinforcing a fundamental status to homeworkers as workers entitled to equal remuneration, training and other conditions as to enterprise based workers.

The minimum a government is required to do upon acceding is to develop a national policy on homework and to undertake to keep statistics on the number of homeworkers in their respective country. As the Textile Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia noted in a Senate submission in 2006, there is controversy over the number of outworkers in Australia, with estimates ranging from an unrealistic 25,000 to a high 330,000. The lack of recent research in this area highlights the need for a coordinated data collection exercise.

The policy platform of the Australian Labor Party commits Australia to accede to the ILO Home Work Convention and the Deputy Prime-Minster, the Hon. Julia Gillard has written to the Justice & International Mission Unit of the Uniting Church in Australia (Victoria & Tasmania) to inform that the Commonwealth Government will positively address this issue. JustAct wants to support this direction taken by the Commonwealth and will continue to highlight the benefits of the Convention to make sure that Australia takes the step to support the Convention.

Note: The Australian Commonwealth Government has just committed $4m to the No Sweatshop label.

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