Cash transfers and the fight for decent work A lot of attention is focused on issues around exploitative labour, with researchers exploring ways to aid the fight for decent work. The WorkFREE project aims to build a deeper picture of circumstances on the ground, investigating how the combination of cash transfers and participatory action research can help, as Dr Neil Howard explains. The reality of work today for many people involves providing their labour in difficult, undignified and dangerous circumstances. While work like waste picking has been labelled as exploitative by some observers, many people nevertheless choose to do it, though their options are often severely limited. “People are agents, yet that agency is seriously circumscribed. Structural pressures place major limits on what people can and cannot choose,” explains Dr Neil Howard. As the Principal Investigator of the WorkFREE project, Dr Howard is now investigating whether providing cash transfers (or what some would call a ‘basic income’) to
action research and more grass-roots support for collective action. “The hypothesis behind this is that traditional policy-making around phenomena like so-called modern slavery or exploitation remains very top-down, even though top-down approaches are documented to be ineffective,” explains Dr Howard. “There’s an impressive tradition in action research of essentially reversing the order of doing things and saying; ‘Ok, we are here with you in solidarity, rather than to offer you any charity’.” The difference is that whereas traditional policy-makers come with a pre-conceived idea of the right course of action, action
There’s an impressive tradition in action research of essentially reversing the order of doing things and saying; ‘Ok, we are here with you in solidarity, rather than to offer you any charity. a community involved in waste-picking in Hyderabad, India will enhance their freedom and widen the opportunities available to them. “If we can understand freedom as being partly about the ability to say no to things, then the idea of ensuring that people have enough money in their pocket is that this should increase their ability to say no to the worst forms of work,” he says.
Working choices The WorkFREE social experiment has two arms to it, only one of which centres around this intuitive idea that if people have more money, they’ll be able to make different choices in relation to their work. The second arm of the experiment involves participatory
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research involves asking rather than telling. By asking people what they see as their problems and what they need to improve their wellbeing, Dr Howard hopes that WorkFREE’s approach to action research will both model a different way of understanding and engaging with exploitative forms of livelihood and lay the foundations for sustainable change within participant communities beyond the life of the project. “It’s about asking people questions such as; what skills are there here that we can draw upon? What support might you need to use them well?” he outlines. The cash transfers will be delivered over an 18-month period, while the action research will be undertaken over two full years, providing a basis for researchers to investigate a number
of scientific questions. “Can we support people to experience more of ‘the power to say no’? How can we theoretically define concepts like exploitation and freedom together with people who are typically excluded from that kind of discussion?” asks Dr Howard. This project is still at a relatively early stage, and the priority at the moment is establishing partnerships and building relationships with the participant communities. The research will be conducted in collaboration with several respected Indian institutions, including the Indian Network for Basic Income (INBI), the Initiative for What Works to Advance Women and Girls in the Economy (IWWAGE), and the Montfort Social Institute (MSI). Dr Howard hopes the project’s findings will advance academic debates around labour unfreedom and help inform future development policy. “Members of the research team in India are very well connected with the Indian policy establishment, while the Europe-based team have similar connections there,” he says.
WorkFREE Slavery, Work and Freedom: What Can Cash Transfers Contribute to the Fight for Decent Work? Dr Neil Howard Prize Fellow University of Bath Beyond Trafficking and Slavery T: +44 7456 373 272 E: neil.howard@uantwerpen.be W: https://researchportal. bath.ac.uk/en/projects/ workfree-erc-startinggrant-transfer-in Dr Neil Howard is Prize Fellow at the University of Bath and PI of the ERC Starting Grant, WorkFREE. He researches exploitative work and efforts to prevent it.
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