Barrientos And Rossouw Article: Experiences Of Contract Workers In The Organizational Economy

The link between working in the informal economy and being poor, is stronger for women than for men. A higher percentage of women than men worldwide work in the informal economy. Moreover, there is a gender gap in incomes and wages in the informal economy. This is because women worldwide are under-represented in higher income employment statuses in the informal economy (employer and self-employed) and over- represented in the lower income statuses (casual wage worker and industrial outworker). For instance, relatively fewer women are employers who hire others, and conversely, relatively fewer men are industrial outworkers. Even within the same trade or industry, men and women tend to be involved in different employment statuses (Reay 2004).

Labour in the South African fruit sector has been increasingly reduced meaning that a growing number of workers are now taking on indirect employment from labour contractors. Their employment is highly insecure, with little or no legal or social protection, which can have detrimental effects on their wellbeing. Arguably, contract work involves a greater degree of flexibility through the casualisation of work where labour is employed on a short term or part-time basis directly by the employer. It is part of an ‘externalisation’ of employment, in which work is put out to external contractors or agents. This can be done through labour-only contractors who are only responsible for hiring workers, or a contractor who is brought in to complete a specific task. In the latter case the third party contractor is responsible for both the hiring and payment of workers and the producer no longer has any direct employment relationship with workers (Kritzinger, Barrientos & Rossouw