ABSTRACT
The splintering of work within global value chains has foregrounded the limits of private voluntary arrangements in promoting labour standards in the hidden and informal segments lower down these chains. This chapter argues that it is important to move beyond the workplace and into the communities where the most vulnerable informal workers live and work to really make a difference to providing safer working conditions workers at the bottom of global value chains. Drawing on three cases from India, the chapter describes new labour market arrangements that shed light on promising new pathways for promoting decent work among informal home-based workers in the garment industry. These arrangements share two common features: (1) they focus on the places, localised occupational labour markets and communities that the workers are a part of, and not just individual workplaces or chain-involved workers; and (2) their interventions target not only the locus of production (skills, training, wages), but also the sphere of social reproduction (child health, schooling, creches, social support, savings societies, new sourcing models) often in partnership with public sector agencies, branded buyers, community organisations and multilateral organisations. The involvement of locally rooted workers and community associations at the intersection of sites of production and social reproduction can elicit continuous oversight and accountability while strengthening workers’ agency in fostering safer work environments.
