Media Highlights

“Last month, a group of independent unions in Cambodia decided to push for minimum wage of $207 per month based on an independent study done by DC Research, a Cambodian firm, and was supported by U.S.-based Solidarity Center.”

“Citizens deserve the dignity that comes when one’s rights are respected … It is vital that the United States and all nations recognize that the path to human dignity is built on democracy and justice,” writes Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau, together with Freedom House President Mark P. Lagon, on United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16.− Promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies.

Discussing the new United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau said: “We’ve seen four generations of people… migrating [globally] for work without a government focus on decent jobs for people working right at home—and that’s what we hope these development goals get us back to.”

“Recent revelations of slave-labor camps and mass graves of migrant workers in Southeast Asia demonstrate the risks people will take to try to earn a living–and underscore how impossible it will be to fix inequality while migrants’ lives seem to carry so little value,” says Shawna Bader-Blau, executive director of the Solidarity Center. (Op-Ed)

““The learning curve is steep,” says Alonzo Suson, program director of Solidarity Center in Dhaka… that is helping train BIGUF union leaders [in workplace safety].”

“One of the most exciting things is that women workers are organizing … to fight for their labor rights and improve their wages and to make sure their working conditions are improved.”–Solidarity Center Gender Specialist Lisa McGowan on CCTV.

Through grants to the Solidarity Center, USAID provided training to approximately 11,000 [Ready Made Garment] union leaders and members – more than half of whom were women – on collective bargaining, union leadership, industrial dispute resolution, media and organisational democracy, according to a news agency.

“The administration has lost a huge opportunity to advance human rights in its trade relationships,” said Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau.

At the end of June, nearly 350 workers fainted in garment factories across Cambodia, with more than 100 collapsing on one day alone, raising concerns about the health of workers in Cambodia’s textile industry. William Conklin, country program director at the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center in Cambodia, said clothing brands should take responsibility for their workers by providing food nutrition programs, food allowances and regular labor inspections. “Wages increases, with sufficient funding for meals during work time, are critically linked to how well workers can look after themselves,” he said

Lured by the promise of $316 a month to work on road construction, Arjunan traveled last year from India to Malaysia, where his employer confiscated his passport and decided to pay him just $36. When Arjunan protested, his boss phoned India and told Arjunan’s wife that he would cut off her husband’s leg and hand. So she pawned jewelry to buy back the confiscated passport. But even after she paid out nearly $1,400, Arjunan’s boss still won’t give it back. Arjunan’s ordeal, documented by the Solidarity Center, is typical in Malaysia, which may be upgraded by the State Department for its efforts to fight human trafficking.