Congress 2021

The ITUC sends message of congratulations and solidarity for your Congress. The rights, health and safety, living incomes and social protection are vital elements for all workers and central to the fight for the ITUC for a New Social Contract. And the struggle for the promise of C190 for the elimination of violence along with the C177 for Home-based Workers are priorities for Decent Work so we share your aspirations and we look forward to an ongoing partnership with HomeNet.

Dear Sisters and Brothers of HomeNet,

So good that finally the days have come that the launch of HomeNet International can be realized. Although not in a physical way, but at least many of us can share the experience of this important event on line. Especially in these difficult times, where the pandemic is not leaving us, inequality is increasing and social power is neglected, an organisation such as HomeNet International is so essential. Home-based workers world-wide are greatly suffering from what is happening and international solidarity is a way to fight together for a decent life. We wish you a very constructive and valuable launch congress that will motivate all of us to continue this struggle.

On behalf of WIEGO’s board and the entire WIEGO team, I am delighted to extend my congratulations to HomeNet International on this very special and historic occasion---the launch and Congress of HNI. I know it has been a long journey to organise, unite and build the solidarity of thousands of home-based workers across the globe. I have no doubt that HNI will take forward the work of organising and ensuring voice and representation of home-based workers, bringing much-needed visibility and collective strength to each worker wherever she is located and wherever she struggles for justice and her rightful place in the economy of her country and globally. This will importantly include the struggle for identity cards and social protection which HNI already identified as a major gap during the current pandemic.

WIEGO stands in solidarity with HNI and all the member organisations and home-based workers who have contributed to the formation of HNI. We wish you all the very best for this important step forward for home-based workers.

In Solidarity,

Today we rejoice and celebrate the birth of a global organization of homebased workers – the HomeNet International. We feel proud as part of the informal workers movement to be at this moment of change. On behalf of the Executive Committee and its 580,000 members all over the world, we congratulate you on the milestone you have reached and reaffirm our commitment to struggle alongside with members of the HomeNet International for respect, dignity and freedom of all workers by unifying all informal workers as one.

As informal workers, we share many common challenges – poverty and lack of security throughout our lives. As we organize, we see that we also share many dreams and strength. The launch today is a beginning of our new future. Long Live International Solidarity! Together we shall overcome!

In Solidarity,

The founding of Homenet International is a momentous step in advancing the rights of home workers worldwide. Living wages, social protection and decent work for home-based workers and other informal economy workers continues to be a major challenge. Home based work is often poorly regulated with home-based workers mostly excluded from the scope of labour legislation and collective bargaining agreements, leading to disparities in the treatment of home-based workers and other wage earners. Home based work is also a highly gendered form of production, with most home-workers being women.

In this context, the creation of a global network of home-based organizations through the launch of HomeNet International paves the way for an effective international campaign for regional standards and policies to protect and promote the rights of home-based workers. We wish HomeNet International success at their launching Congress and hope it serves as an international space for collective organizing for the rights and representation of home-based workers.

On behalf of StreetNet International, which unites street/market vendors and informal traders from 54 countries, representing more than 650 000 workers worldwide, I would like to express our full international solidarity with all the home-based workers around the globe and congratulate all of you with a Launching Congress of HomeNet International!

It’s been an honour for StreetNet International to be invited to the virtual Launching Congress as we need to continue our permanent struggle for recognition, inclusion and social justice!

It is a real historical moment which brings up all the home-based workers to highlight their incredible and invisible work they do in their homes at the same time – contributing into their national economies as any other informal economy workers, who try to work honestly and with dignity.

It's a crucial time for all of us to unite and push with a strong front of informal economy workers and to push on promotion of our rights and interests, our demands and needs to be implemented.

We wish you a great and successful Launching Congress as such a global structure like HomeNet International will significantly amplify the voice of all the home-based workers at national, regional and international levels.

Viva HomeNet International!

In solidarity,

Greetings to all the HomeNet sisters and brothers from ILO’s Cooperatives Unit in Geneva. We congratulate you all on this auspicious occasion launching your global network through an international congress. What an exciting and memorable day! It is 25 years after the adoption of ILO's Home Work Convention, 1996 (No. 177). A quarter century of organizing across five regions finally culminates in the establishment of this important global network to raise visibility and gain recognition of home-based workers as workers today.

We note that this network comes at a critical time when informal economy workers are hard hit with the social and economic impact of the global pandemic. There is much need for solidarity, mutualism and self-help during this time. At ILO COOP we wish you the best in building and providing solidarity among your members around common and pressing issues. We are confident that this global network will influence governments and employers globally just like the other global informal economy worker networks/federations, IDWF, StreetNet International and Global Waste Pickers Alliance. We look forward to working with HomeNet International in advancing their cooperatives and wider social and solidarity economy organizations around the world.

In solidarity,

As even more clear from the pandemic, there is a need to build back better, fairer and greener as well as to assure that no one is left behind. Therefore, it is essential to recognise and hear the voices of the many. Homenet International will unite the voices of membership-based organizations in Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and South East Asia, raise visibility, gain recognition and provide a global voice of the home-based workers.

Open Society Foundations congratulates HomeNet International on your first Congress. We stand in solidarity with your collective efforts and demands seeking economic justice for Home-Based Workers around the world. Your important work aligns with our shared interest to build worker power to address labor rights and income concerns. As a legitimate and democratic worker organization, you do vital work building solidarity among workers, ensuring the visibility of Home-Based Workers, advocating for policy change to ensure workers’ rights and protections and in increasing economic opportunities for workers. We applaud you on the achievement of your congress and stand in solidarity with you all.

The IUF is pleased to send you solidarity greeting on the occasion of the Founding Congress of HomeNet International. It is particularly fitting that the Congress is taking place as we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the adoption in 1996 of the International Labour Convention on Home Work. The Convention was adopted after many years of struggle to get recognition for home-based workers. It signaled a turning point in global understanding of the role and contribution of home-based workers. It recognises that home-based workers have the “right to establish or join organizations of their own choosing and to participate in the activities of such organizations”. The launch of HNI takes that right to the global level. The IUF was proud to work with our affiliates and HBWs’ organisations to achieve that Convention. We look forward to working with HNI and wish you every success in your future endeavours.

In solidarity,

Warm congratulations to the different organizations of home-based workers who decided to join forces in the founding Congress of HomeNet International. Your renewed commitment to home-based workers’ rights will boost ratification and implementation of key ILO standards which many of you present today contributed to shape, jointly working in synergy with the Workers’ Group: the latest being Convention 190 on Violence and Harassment; Convention 189 on Domestic Work and Convention 177 on Home Work (which needs your specific attention, having only 10 ratification, even if adopted in 1996).

The glue to all of this needs to be the respect of fundamental rights for all workers, in particular Convention 87 on Freedom of Association and Convention 98 on Collective Bargaining which remain the bedrock of your action.

Solidarity and best wishes,