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• Summary:

• Context and Justification:

In African states, the share of informal employment in total employment is particularly significant, ranging from 40.2% in Southern Africa to 67.3% in North Africa, and over 90% in Central, Eastern, and Western Africa. However, this encompass encompasses a wide variety of situations that the use of the term informality largely tends to obscure. Under the label of informality are included situations of undeclared dependent or independent work, as well as activities that may involve forms of cooperation, or even be governed by custom or familial support. The statistical virtue of the notion of informality finds its limit here. It does not allow to grasp the variety of normative forms that enable actors to qualify and coordinate their activities. The concept of informal work was partly disseminated by the International Labour Office (ILO), which at one time even promoted it, notably through the debate on development policies and the publication in 1972 of a multidisciplinary mission report on employment in Kenya. However, the International Labour Organizations (ILO) analysis is now much more critical. The resolution concerning decent work and the informal economy, adopted at the 90th session of the International Labour Conference in 2002, marks a turning point in this regard. By adopting Recommendation No. 204 in 2015, the ILO emphasized how its magnitude, the informal economy, in all its forms, constitutes a sizable obstacle to the rights of workers, including fundamental principles and rights at work, social protection, decent working conditions, inclusive development, and the rule of law, and it negatively impacts the growth of sustainable enterprises, public revenue, the states scope of action, including for economic, social, and environmental policies, and the soundness of institutions and fair competition in national and international markets (ILO Recommendation No. 204 concerning the transition from the informal to the formal economy, adopted by the International Labor Conference, at its 104th session on June 12, 2015, in Geneva). The ILO sets as a principle that the transition from the informal to the formal economy is essential to realize inclusive development and decent work for all (Ibid). To achieve this transition, Recommendation No. 204 calls on states to implement coherent and integrated strategies to facilitate the transition to the formal economy. The establishment of these integrated policies must notably be based on effective and effective labor inspections. The Recommendation thus makes labor inspection one of the key actors in the transition to formality. It commits member states to have an adequate and appropriate inspection system, extend labor inspection coverage to all workplaces in the informal economy in order to protect workers, and provide guidance to bodies responsible for enforcing laws, including on how to address working conditions in the informal economy (Ibid). Here, the labor inspector is a key player. They are invested with several functions that may capture all or part of informal employment: the right to visit and control, an informal or obligatory conciliation role in case of conflict or dispute.

• Objective:

To examine the role of labor inspection in the transition from informality to formality. The aim is to better understand the role of labor inspectors regarding work activities in the informal economy and, at the same time, to test the solidity of the category informality through the observation of labor inspection activity. How to study and account for the pluralism of normative forms characteristic of activities categorized under informality? Our hypothesis is that these reveal themselves when labor inspection services are recognized or recognize themselves the right of oversight over all or part of the activities developed in the so-called informal economy, especially when they adopt a proactive and educational professional stance, but also when they are faced with work accidents, collective conflicts, and individual disputes. In particular, we would like to examine situations in which the normative forms mobilized in the context of informal employment are put to the test of state normativity.

The project is structured around 3 axes.

The first axis aims to understand the transition policies implemented in Ivory Coast and Morocco to ensure the transition from the informal to the formal economy. This involves studying the impact of the ILOs recommendations on the establishment of transition policies to formality within labor administrations.

The second and third axes will more directly address the positions and practices of labor inspectors towards the informal sector. The second axis targets the control function of respecting labor law rules invested in labor inspection. To what extent can this control apply to informal employment situations? This question is complex. It involves several levels of inquiry. The first, and not the least, concerns the competence of labor inspection. To what extent are labor inspectors recognized de jure or recognize themselves de facto competent to control or promote the rights of workers in the informal economy? Labor inspection positions can vary according to the countries studied on the one hand, but also according to the types of informality considered. Informal work in a declared company, independent work, customary work forms, agricultural work... are all specific cases. Beyond the mere control issue, the competence of labor inspection with respect to types of informal employment plays an important role in workers access to court and labor judge. For example, in Ivory Coast, recourse to the judge is preconditioned on conciliation with labor inspection. It is not uncommon for the inspector to play a role in filtering access to the court by only issuing a decision on the condition that the work relationship in question is indeed a subordinate work relationship. Labor inspection practices often consist of declaring themselves incompetent in matters of informal employment due to the absence of a written employment contract. More broadly, the question of inspection competence allows analyzing how the activity of qualifying informal activities unfolds. Once they consider themselves competent, labor inspectors can also adopt different positions regarding atypical work situations. Is it about controlling to sanction the violation of labor legislation? Does labor inspection, on the contrary, play a preventative role or promote minimum protection primarily in the area of informal employment?

The third axis will address the conciliation function. Indeed, labor inspection has, both in Ivory Coast and in Morocco, a conciliation function in the event of individual labor disputes, as well as a mission to prevent and regulate social conflicts. This is a function of labor inspection that is not entirely specific to the context of West Africa and the Maghreb. French law has also partly served as a model here. However, this conciliation function occupies a particularly important place in Ivory Coast and Morocco. It can even partly seem to substitute for the control function more commonly invested in labor inspection. This is often more of a seated rather than a standing inspection. This conciliation function is ambivalent in this regard. It obviously aims to facilitate the resolution of disputes between employers and workers through recourse to labor inspection. It can also partly act as a filter for these disputes. Thus, in Ivory Coast, the minutes of conciliation or non-conciliation are a necessary and prior condition for bringing a case before the labor judge. The declaration of labor inspections incompetence in matters of informal work – and sometimes more fundamentally still, the a priori of incomprehension – can very likely constitute an obstacle to bringing a case before the judge even though this decision of incompetence could itself be subject to debate before the judge. More broadly, what is the role of labor inspection in resolving labor disputes in the informal economy? Can it be an important actor through its functions of preventing conflicts, conciliating individual disputes, mediation? Is there a vector of transition towards formality especially through references of regulation/peacekeeping solutions referring to or modeling standards like representation, negotiation, collective organization, decent wage, discrimination, etc.?

• Main Methods:

1. Semi-structured interviews

Interviews will be conducted with actors engaged in controlling the respect of labor law rules, likely to shed light on the intervention of labor inspection in matters of informality: labor inspectors, labor directors on the one hand, lawyers, members of professional organizations, as well as NGOs confronted with informal work in their actions. What representation of informality? How is the promotion of the transition from the informal to the formal economy by the International Labor Organization received in Morocco and Ivory Coast? What functions are invested in labor inspection? How do labor inspectors conceive their role and adjust their practices to informal work situations? How do social partners, civil society actors, or legal professionals integrate labor inspection into their action related to informality.

2. Collection and analysis of documents

The material here will consist of reports, documents, standards produced by the International Organization and Moroccan and Ivorian labor administrations in connection with informality. The third axis of the project will focus on the analysis of pleading files and judgments on cases related to informal work and having involved labor inspection at some point in the proceeding (lawyers note, proof, legal documentation, conclusions, reports, judicial decisions).