Whenever we talk about an economic development project that targets a specific group of low-income people, one of the most obvious questions to ask is: will this initiative make these people better off financially? In the case of the catadores, most people tend to assume that cooperative organizations will bring a clear economic benefit, given that large groups of people working together can demand a higher price for their product. However, the real story is a bit more complicated.
In January, the State Waste and Citizenship Forum of Minas Gerais published the results of a year-long study of catadores and recycling systems across the state. Data in this study revealed a fact that many may find surprising at first: catadores tend to make more money working in dumps than in cooperatives. Whereas only 11.1% of organized catadores reported a monthly income of at least R$466 (US$290), 25.6% of catadores in dumps reported at least this amount. (By comparison, only 9.7% of catadores in the street reported this amount.)
This makes sense if you think about it intuitively. In the dumps, material is plentiful. Walking around within a few square feet you are likely to find a good number of cans. If you work for long enough hours (and the same study showed that catadores in dumps tend to work significantly longer on a daily basis), then you are likely to make a greater income. But at the same time the drawbacks are significant: smell, hygiene, risk of cuts and/or infections, animals, social stigma, etc. Child labor also tends to be more common in the dumps, as parents recruit their children to help them pick through the material.
But even with these drawbacks, catadores are often reluctant to leave the dumps. Why abandon something straightforward and profitable to face the uncertainty of joining a new organization? In fact, many of the cooperatives I work with began not out of a sudden desire from the catadores to organize themselves, but rather due to external pressure. In the case of ASCAP in Nova Lima, the association only began when the municipal authorities closed the dump and the catadores had no choice but to search for alternatives. In fact, one of the leaders of ASCAP, Leo, explained that for a long time he made much less money in the association than he used to in the dump. ASMARE, the 200-person strong association in Belo Horizonte, was only formed after the local police repeatedly harassed homeless catadores sorting material on the street behind the bus station. Although many of the catadores of these groups are now glad to be part of an organization, they admit that it was an imposition that they resented at first.
This is a struggle we still deal with on a regular basis here. The more established organizations now offer fairly decent salaries that can even compete with the formal market (when times are good associates can make several times the minimum wage). But the associations struggling to solidify their operations also face difficulties in providing strong economic incentives for their members to stay on. And even though we may think of the organization as a more stable form of employment, the truth is that the cooperatives can go through huge boom and bust periods depending on market prices, private donations of recyclables, government contracts, etc. In a lot of ways, life in the dump is much more reliable and safe.
All in all, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the catadores are better off working in organizations than in the streets or in dumps. But the economic incentive is not always on our side, especially when dealing with new organizations, and this makes our work that much more difficult. In the long term, through circumventing the middlemen and selling higher up in the supply chain, we should be able to provide better income for the catadores that make up part of the CATAUNIDOS network. But this is still a work in progress.
In Bogota, waste pickers no longer work in dumps—it’s all streets and buildings. Several cooperative members told me that cooperative members don’t earn a higher income than do non-members (it can be higher, but it also can be lower). Rather, the main benefits of being in the cooperative is participating in public politics, gaining permits to work in buildings (more dignified and safer than being on the streets), the dignity that comes with wearing a uniform and being part of a community. But like you said, a lot of waste pickers don’t like the structure and discipline required by the cooperatives.
ReplyDelete