Equality & Inclusion

The Solidarity Center engages with unions and their allies through an analysis and practice of equality, radical inclusion and intersectionality that is explicitly feminist, anti-racist, pro-equality, pro-worker, pro-migrant and class conscious. The Solidarity Center designs and implements strategies to confront the multiple and intersecting forms of oppression that contribute to economic structures in which women and other groups of workers are devalued and excluded from economic and social equality. This requires a conscious effort to examine how oppressive forces play out throughout the global labor movement with a commitment to dismantle these systems. Explicit in this work is the understanding that the agency and leadership of the most marginalized workers are key components of decent work and economic justice for all. The Solidarity Center has assisted unions and their allies in countries such as Cambodia, Colombia, Georgia, Honduras, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Nigeria, Nicaragua, South Africa and Tunisia to ensure meaningful participation of historically excluded and marginalized workers in unions and other democratic structures. See related factsheets, videos and reports. In Morocco, the Solidarity Center supported a multi-year effort to build women worker power and gender equality which led to the inclusion of women workers during negotiations for the first collective bargaining agreement in the informal agriculture sector. In Colombia, the Solidarity Center supported the development of the first national organization dedicated to improving the working conditions of Afro-Colombians. In Kyrgyzstan, Morocco and Tunisia, Solidarity Center is assisting in strengthening union efforts to promote inclusion of individuals with disabilities. In Nicaragua, Solidarity Center supports domestic workers as they address inclusion of LGBTQI union members to ensure they can represent themselves, articulate their priorities and increase their leadership opportunities and visibility. The Solidarity Center:

• Conducts research and awareness-raising to challenge systems of oppression and inform inclusive approaches to building worker power across social identities at all levels
• Supports representative, inclusive leadership in our partner organizations
• Engages in cross-movement work to combat tools of oppression that impact women, including gender-based violence and harassment at work
• Brings together unions and community groups to identify shared socioeconomic struggles, analyzes how those struggles are linked to systemic racism and implements organizing, legal and advocacy strategies to collectively overcome the oppression that entraps workers in poverty
• Advocates for economic policies that uproot systemic discrimination and exploitation in labor markets.

Asia | Freedom to Form Unions | Gender-Based Violence and Harassment at Work | Sri Lanka