This was precisely the challenge that the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) faced in India in 1972. An apparently simple question was asked of government officials: “Who’s the employer?” Street vendors, vegetable sellers, rag pickers, construction laborers and women sewing clothes from their homes were not employed by a company or factory. There was no boss to negotiate with, no payroll, no formal employment contracts. Therefore, many believed they were unable to legally organize a labor union in the first place.
But these women worked every day.
Some drove heavy carts of vegetables through crowded markets. Others stayed up late to sew garments, rolled incense sticks by hand or collected recyclable waste to sell. They earned a living, supported families, and contributed to India’s economy, but they were largely invisible because their work was outside the formal labor market. SEWA did not accept this definition, and contested it. The organization said that employment is determined not by having an employer, but by the work people do.
More than fifty years later that simple idea has turned SEWA into one of the world’s most influential organisations for informal workers. It started as a small labor movement in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad and has become an organization representing nearly two million women across India and shaping conversations about labor rights, microfinance, public health and even climate resilience in the international arena.
Unlike many organizations that work on one issue, SEWA is a trade union, a cooperative movement, a financial institution, a healthcare provider, an educator and a community organizer. It’s not just about helping poor women, but about transforming the very definition of work in our society.
Background History
SEWA was officially established in 1972 by Ela Bhatt, a lawyer who had worked for years with the Women’s Wing of the Textile Labour Association (TLA) in Ahmedabad. The TLA was itself a historical entity, established in 1918 under the guidance of Mahatma Gandhi and one of the earliest labor unions in India. In her legal work, Bhatt noticed something strange. Factory workers had legal protections and organized representation, but thousands of women working just outside the factory gates faced a different story.
These women were not jobless. In fact, many worked longer hours than the factory workers. They sold vegetables on the sidewalks, they embroidered textiles at home, they transported goods with handcarts or they recycled discarded materials. Because they worked independently rather than for a single employer, labor laws largely ignored them.
This distinction mattered enormously.As workers who were not recognized legally, many times, they did not have a minimum wage, health care, pension, insurance, and protection at work. In case any of them fell sick or got an injury, their income would be gone instantly. In case any of them were arrested by the local authorities and their carts were seized, most times there were no ways of getting their property back.
Seeing this problem, Bhatt decided to set up an organization for the benefit of such women but found it surprisingly hard to register one.
Labor unions were there to facilitate negotiation between workers and management. In this case, the members of SEWA had no management, therefore raising doubts on whether SEWA qualified to be a trade union. Bhatt was able to prove that the workers of SEWA were being exploited through middlemen, local governments, money lenders and unfair markets. They were workers without any formal management; nevertheless, this did not mean that they were not workers. Eventually, SEWA was legally recognized and a trend was set for future talks about informal labor.
India’s Informal Sector
In order to get an idea of why SEWA became so important, one must understand the nature of India’s labor market.
While most individuals have visions of employment that involve offices, factories, or shopping malls where workers earn their pay through wages and other benefits, India’s economy has been characterized by informal employment for many years now.
As per the International Labour Organization, about 93 percent of the female workforce in India have been employed in the informal sector. This involves domestic workers, home-based producers, agricultural laborers, artisans, street vendors, waste pickers, and many more categories of workers who have contributed immensely to the local economy without having health insurance, pension plans, or even paid vacation.
It creates a paradox.
However, although such workers are considered self-employed, they have no economic autonomy in terms of the way they live. The vegetable vendor might need the help of wholesalers who fix prices; the artisan might need the help of middlemen who buy goods at very low prices and sell them at huge profits; and the home-based workers might do sub-contracted jobs but without even knowing who benefits from their efforts.
SEWA realized that the root of the problem was not just poverty.
The main thing that was lacking was the ability to negotiate.
Rather than considering members to be people in need of assistance, SEWA looked at them as workers who could change their lives for the better with adequate power, money, and market access.
Key Objectives and Philosophy
The objective of SEWA can be explained through two key objectives that are: full employment and self-reliance.
It is noteworthy that for SEWA, ‘full employment’ has a far wider meaning than just being employed.
For SEWA, being employed involves gaining four types of securities, which include:
* Work security: availability of opportunities to earn money.
* Income security: receiving a reasonable amount of income.
* Food security: providing proper nutrition for their families.
* Social security: getting healthcare services, child care, insurance, pensions, and housing.
The other aspect is ‘self-reliance’. Instead of depending on external help, SEWA promotes self-help.
This philosophy is inspired by the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi, who inspired the previous Textile Labour Association where SEWA came from. According to Gandhi, sustainable social development can only come about through collective action and local self-reliance. SEWA embraced these principles in its motto of:
“Struggle and Development.”
Both are purposely meant to complement each other.
“Struggle” is seen as mobilizing the workers, negotiating with the government, opposing discriminatory laws and demanding legal rights.
On the other hand, “development” entails developing practical initiatives including forming co-operatives, providing health services, increasing educational opportunities, providing child care and improving access to money.
SEWA does not believe that struggle and development are alternative approaches to social development.
Organizational Structure
While typically considered a trade union, SEWA is structured according to a far more complex framework.
It retains a grassroots democratic approach at its core. It involves women participating voluntarily, electing representatives from their own community to make decisions on their behalf at various organizational levels. Members are organized along lines of occupation, geography, or cooperatives before they choose leaders who will speak on their behalf in regional and national councils. This gives local concerns related to agriculture, handicrafts, street vending, or waste disposal special consideration while connecting to the broader movement as well.
One of the most unique characteristics of SEWA is that it slowly evolved into something different from the usual labor movement.
Just two years after its formation, the organization launched the SEWA Cooperative Bank.
Why? The answer was quite straightforward: commercial banks would not provide loans to many of its members. Lending officers often asked for collateral in the form of asset ownership and stable employment—preconditions that left out the majority of self-employed women. Instead of going back to moneylenders with their extortionate interest rates, 4,000 women pooled their resources, giving ten rupees each to create their own cooperative bank. These women did not simply become customers; they became shareholders and owners of the bank itself.
Even the operation of the bank took into consideration the realities of its membership. Since many early members could not write their names, identity cards included photos and thumb impressions. Mobile banking eventually allowed members to save money without having to take time off from their work since banking was brought right into the villages and slums.
Major Accomplishments
While many organizations judge their achievements through their number of programs, SEWA’s accomplishments should be judged through its number of assumptions debunked. For the last five decades, SEWA has shown that informal workers can unionize, manage financial institutions, affect national policies, and even impact international discussions on labor rights.
SEWA’s perhaps most remarkable accomplishment has been the founding of the SEWA Cooperative Bank back in 1974. Most commercial banks at the time regarded self-employed poor women as “unbankable” because, lacking land, fixed incomes or any form of security, they were denied loans. Rather than wait for the banks to change their policies, about 4,000 women pooled together ten rupees each to set up their own cooperative bank which they would collectively own. But the bank was not just there to give out loans; it encouraged savings, banking education, insurance and entrepreneurship, thus giving women access to funds that they had never had before. Even more significantly, each depositors was automatically made into a stockholder of the bank.
It is also worth mentioning the unique evolution of SEWA from a conventional labor organization into a wide-ranging service provider for informal workers. Labor unions usually deal with issues like negotiation of salaries and working conditions. However, SEWA acknowledged that there was much more to the problems of informal workers than salaries. Thus, it started providing services in a variety of spheres: healthcare, childcare, insurance, housing, legal advice, vocational training, disaster relief, and cooperatives. All these services were connected together as different aspects of social security. Thus, while a woman may lose her source of income due to illness, she would need access to affordable healthcare, childcare, and an emergency fund.
SEWA was also among the first organizations to use micro-insurance. Back in 1992, it developed an innovative integrated insurance product for life, health, and assets. While microinsurance existed back then, SEWA’s innovation lies in designing the product with informal workers’ interests in mind. This included keeping premiums low enough, simplifying enrollment procedures for poorly literate members, and helping them fill out their claim forms. SEWA has been acknowledged by the International Labour Organization as the world’s pioneer in community-based insurance schemes for poor people.
The impact of SEWA soon started spreading beyond India. SEWA has served as a model organization for informal workers by the International Labour Organization (ILO), Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO). In addition, Ela Bhatt has emerged as a respected international leader of the labor movement, cooperative movement, and microfinance movement. Ela Bhatt has been awarded with prestigious international prizes like the Ramon Magsaysay Award, which is often called “Asia’s Nobel Prize” and the Right Livelihood Award or “Alternative Nobel Prize.”
Moreover, SEWA made yet another major achievement through the policy advocacy process. For several decades, SEWA has campaigned in support of the legal status and protection of street vendors who have often faced harassment, fines, and eviction while selling goods and services in public spaces. This long campaigning process helped to create a legal document, The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, in 2014, according to which street vendors have received the right to operate without fear of arbitrary eviction. Even though several organizations have participated in creating this movement, SEWA was particularly significant in proving that the workers deserve legal protection instead of criminal prosecution.
Global Influence and Ongoing Innovations
Despite its origin being confined to the state of Gujarat, today the influence of SEWA extends far beyond the borders of India.
This is because the issues facing SEWA are not unique to India. The International Labour Organization reports that over 60 percent of all employees work in the informal economy. They share many similar problems with those that prompted the formation of SEWA including fluctuating income levels, lack of any rights, and inability to use financial institutions. Because of that, SEWA is often studied as an example by the researchers and policy-makers in terms of organizing informal labor.
Furthermore, SEWA continues evolving and addressing new challenges rather than using only the approaches developed decades ago.
The most evident example can be found in relation to climate change.
A lot of SEWA members perform outdoor jobs as farmers, construction workers, or street vendors. This leads to the fact that high temperatures not only negatively affect their health but also decrease their income. Climate change was not considered an independent environmental problem but rather a problem of labor relations.
SEWA worked alongside environmental groups and insurers to come up with one of the first parametric heat insurance schemes aimed at informal sector women workers in 2023 and 2024. Instead of making women members submit documentation on their financial losses after disasters, payouts would be made automatically any time the temperature went beyond the agreed threshold. In 2024, during the period of extreme heat in India, around 50,000 women received financial help under this scheme, receiving cash compensation when conditions outside posed risks to their health and safety.
SEWA has not neglected technology either. Mobile banking, digital payment solutions, online marketplace, and digital literacy training have been used to enable members to have better access to financial services and customers. Technology cannot solve the issue of structural inequality, but it is yet another means of creating economic opportunities for those who were previously excluded from the formal sector.
Challenges and Criticisms
In spite of all that has been accomplished, however, SEWA still faces considerable challenges.
The first challenge lies in the sheer scope of the informal economy. The informal workers of India number millions of people spread out over myriad occupations, languages, and geographic areas. Getting vegetable sellers, artisans, agricultural workers, domestic workers, and waste pickers organized into one united movement is an immensely challenging task. Unlike factory workers, who have the advantage of working within the same physical space, SEWA members work individually.
Financial sustainability also poses a challenge. In spite of having succeeded in creating a system of cooperatives and a wide variety of services, SEWA still has to ensure funding, collaborations, and efficient management of the various programs like healthcare, insurance, trainings, and finances.
SEWA also needs to evolve in response to the changing nature of work. Digital technologies including ride-hailing and food delivery have brought about new kinds of informal employment that bear little resemblance to traditional street vending or home-based work. Such workers are subject to algorithmic management, fluctuating income, and unclear legal status. This means that new challenges arise regarding the continued representation of workers whose work arrangements are mediated by technology rather than the local market environment.
Lastly, climate change poses an ever-increasing threat. Extreme heat, floods, droughts, and uncertain weather conditions endanger many members of SEWA, especially those who do their job in the open air and engage in agriculture. Though innovative solutions, such as heat insurance, are being developed, climate risks keep increasing at a rate faster than the community can cope with them.
SEWA also needs to evolve in response to the changing nature of work. Digital technologies including ride-hailing and food delivery have brought about new kinds of informal employment that bear little resemblance to traditional street vending or home-based work. Such workers are subject to algorithmic management, fluctuating income, and unclear legal status. This means that new challenges arise regarding the continued representation of workers whose work arrangements are mediated by technology rather than the local market environment.
Lastly, climate change poses an ever-increasing threat. Extreme heat, floods, droughts, and uncertain weather conditions endanger many members of SEWA, especially those who do their job in the open air and engage in agriculture. Though innovative solutions, such as heat insurance, are being developed, climate risks keep increasing at a rate faster than the community can cope with them.
More than fifty years after its founding, SEWA continues to evolve as new challenges emerge. Whether addressing digital employment, financial inclusion, or climate adaptation, the organization remains guided by the same belief that inspired its creation in 1972: that meaningful development begins by recognizing people whose work has too often gone unseen.
By: Sean Han
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