Together, the leaders, organizers, and members of SEWA have struggled for such things as fixed wages for head-loaders, secure selling spaces for used garment-dealers, and protection against police harassment for vegetable-vendors. Quilt-sewers and papad-makers have organized strikes for higher piece rates, and bamboo-workers have collectively resisted attempts by the police to prevent them working on the footpaths outside their huts. The union has established a complaints section where any self-employed woman can register a work- or family-related problem. These complaints are taken up by SEWA's organizers and group leaders. It was soon realized that struggle alone is not enough, that along with labor union, development work should continue.
SEWA's first developmental activity was a credit program for members as one of their most persistent problems was indebtedness to private money-lenders. Thus, during its first year SEWA took up a large program to link its members with low interest loans from India's nationalized banking system. This soon led to the formation of the SEWA Bank (solely owned and operated by women) which today provides saving and credit services to thousands of poor working women in the city. Each member pays an annual membership fee of Rs.5 which has uncreased in the past years.
SEWA has also been instrumental in creating social security programs for self-employed workers. A government-sponsored life insurance program offered through the SEWA Bank was one of the first to reach self-employed workers in India. SEWA has designed and implemented a maternity benefit scheme for its members in response to an alarmingly high rate of maternal and infant mortality.
Since the mid-seventies SEWA has expanded its developmental activities by offering several training courses to its members. Initially, literacy training was the focus, but it received a cool response, However, subsequent classes for upgrading income-generating skills were quite successful and the demand for skills-training grew. Since then, work in this area has expanded to provide training to vegetable-vendors, garment-sewers, bamboo-workers, junksmiths, carpenters, and hand-block printers. They have benefited by learning to produce higher quality goods and/or to market more effectively, thereby realizing a broader market demand and wider profit margins.
Another activity is that of establishing cooperatives that function in both urban and rural areas, and deal not only with the provision of training and skill improvement, but also with marketing and management. For this, union activities have expanded from Ahmedabad slums to the five districts of Kela, Banaskantha, Kheda, Mahessana, and Junagar. These cooperatives are of different types. The first is craft-based cooperatives such as block-printers and hand-weavers, cane and bamboo workers. Cooperatives were formed, and training provided, and grants for the same were obtained from government agencies. The second type of cooperatives are service-based, including cleaners, paper pickers, and child-carers. The third are trade cooperatives, for example, for vegetable and fish vendors in which the cooperative now takes bulk orders for hospital canteens, buying from the government fishery board.
In addition to these urban-based income generation projects, SEWA has also organized women workers in the rural areas outside Ahmedabad. The rural wing has been very active in promoting non-farm employment activities for women agricultural laborers, including spinning and weaving of khadi (hand-spun, hand-woven cloth), carpentry, sewing, and women's milk cooperatives. Through these projects, hundreds of women and their families have been provided with a source of income for the agricultural off-season months when they are unemployed. Apart from these, the rural wing sponsors several programs in health, education, leadership training, and skills-upgrading. The members of the milk cooperatives are linked to loans from the nationalized banks through SEWA, and day-care centers have been set up in several villages.
In rural areas there are milk and crafts cooperatives. Milk is collected daily, paid for according to the fat content, and taken away by the local dairy. In rural cooperatives training for a skill like office management is provided. In Gujarat, city women are more mobile and easier to work with in matters of independent struggle. This is not so in rural and middle towns where the women do not have much time, do not sit with men, and have a low status. SEWA has taken the lead in organizing rural women, at least through some cooperatives and economic activities.