Globalization, technological advancements coupled with neoliberal economic policies have significantly changed the world of work. The Workplace has changed from what it used it be in the earlier centuries where it was organized vertically with a single employer having a command of employees under a standard Employment relationship which was often permanent with many attractive and sustainable benefits. Informalization of work and precarity was very limited. However, this is no longer the case in the current modern day Labour market. The current workplace is disintegrated with a workforce that is fragmented through increased outsourcing, subcontracting, agency work, platform workers, crowd workers among others creating other forms of employment relationships which the ILO has termed as “non-standard”. The main driver of these new forms of Employment is mainly to cut down costs of doing business in order to cope with the global competition. However, these forms of employment are tainted with many decent work deficits for instance very low wages, job insecurity, lack of social protection, lack of legal protection since some legal frameworks do not recognize these realities, discrimination among others.
Moreover, there is also an increasing growth of the informal sector in most African countries. The informal sector constitutes 80% of Uganda’s Labour force with own account workers/ self-employed comprising of 73% with the proportion of female workers (79%) higher than that of males (67%) according to the Uganda National Labour Force Survey by Uganda Bureau of Statistics 2016/2017. The informal sector workers have their own peculiar challenges for instance exclusion from employment protection, lack of social protection, harassment from the Public authorities, lack of access to credit among others.
LACA seeks to assist workers overcome these challenges through defending and promoting their rights at the workplace by way of advocacy, offering litigation, research, campaigns, training among other methods.
