English
Arabic
Bengali
Chinese (Simplified)
French
Georgian
Hausa
Indonesian
Kurdish (Kurmanji)
Kyrgyz
Portuguese
Russian
Serbian
Sesotho
Sinhala
Spanish
Swahili
Tamil
Ukrainian
Zulu
During the recent 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, workers and their unions from Honduras to Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Nigeria and Bangladesh made big gains raising awareness about gender-based violence and harassment at work (GBVH) and demanding that...
Search Results
Worker Rights Lawyers Share Successes, Strategies
The ability of workers to freely form unions is such a fundamental human right that the United Nations (UN) holds countries accountable for violating those rights, according to Lance Compa, senior lecturer in labor law at Cornell University. “Even countries that have...
Report: Call to Action for Rights of People on the Move
The freedom to speak, join unions and take part in community life are basic human rights that apply to all people—including migrant workers and refugees, panelists at a United Nations side event said this afternoon in New York City. “Migrant workers and refugees don’t...
MAY DAY 2019: STANDING UP FOR WORKER RIGHTS ACROSS THE GLOBE
From Haiti to Kenya, Nepal and Palestine, hundreds of thousands of workers and their families celebrated International Workers Day last week, honoring the dignity of work and the accomplishments of the labor movement in defending human rights, job stability, fair...
Worker Rights Attacks Part of Human Rights Crackdown
Human rights activists around the world celebrated the recent release from prison of two union leaders in Kazakhstan who were convicted of bogus criminal charges after participating in a peaceful workers’ protest against the forced closure of the country’s main...
Kyrgyz Worker in Kazakhstan Paid $100 for 6 Months’ Work
Aldaberdi Karimov, 42, who lives in a remote Kyrgyzstan village in the Batken region, did not want to migrate from his country to find work to support his family, including his daughter, Ak Maral, now 5 years old. But like many in Kyrgyzstan, where remittances from...
Publications and Interviews
Shawna Bader-Blau Organizing Domestic Workers: The Unfinished Business of Labor Movements(based on a speech before the International Domestic Workers Federation congress, November 17, 2018, Page 39) Future of Work Round Table: How Has the World of Work Changed?...
Decent Work Forum: ‘With a Union, We May Fight Together’
Ending human trafficking. Ensuring all employers treat workers fairly. Giving voice to migrant workers around the world. Creating a world in which women are treated equally to men. These are some of the broad goals participants at the Solidarity Center Forum on Decent...
Decent Work Forum: Sharing Strategies for Success
Following heartfelt rounds of songs on workers’ struggles and union solidarity, some 30 worker rights advocates launched the second day of the Forum on Decent Work for Agricultural Women and Domestic Workers. Discussions centered on the lack of migrant worker rights...
Kenya Union: Ban on Labor Recruiting Agencies Should Stay
The Central Organization of Trade Unions–Kenya (COTU-K) said the country’s recent decision to lift its ban on workers migrating to Qatar and Saudi Arabia for jobs is “ill advised,” and urges the government to keep the ban in place until the Ministry of Labor provides...
Decent Work Day: Focus on Living Wages
When Mwahamisi Josiah Makori, a Kenyan mother of three who worked as a domestic worker in Saudi Arabia, first arrived at her new employer’s house, she was given only 20 minutes before she began work. After that, she began a three-month period which involved hard...
Nepal Reconstruction Offers Chance to Create Decent Jobs
As Nepal rebuilds two years after a major earthquake killed thousands of people and displaced millions, the country has an opportunity to achieve more equitable economic development by laying the foundation for an environment that fosters good jobs that sustain...
Solidarity Center: 20 Years Working for Worker Rights
Over the past 20 years, the Solidarity Center has helped eliminate child labor in Liberian rubber plantations; assisted Iraqi trade unions in passing an unprecedented labor law that addresses sexual discrimination at work; campaigned to end workplace-based racism...
Decent Jobs at Home Means Not Risking Your Life Abroad
If working people could find good jobs, they would not be forced into a desperate search for employment in other countries, a process that means they often are exploited and abused, says Caroline Khamati Mugalla, executive secretary of the East African Trade Union...
Labor Migration Conference Opens Tomorrow
Prexedes, 41, supports her family as a domestic worker, juggling jobs at three employers in Johannesburg, South Africa. Originally from Zimbabwe, Prexedes says after her divorce, she had no choice but to seek work cleaning homes, cooking, and caring for others'...
‘Fair Migration’ Conference to Address Worker Exploitation
Edias was 12 years old when he traveled from Zimbabwe to South Africa to look for a job in agriculture. Now in his mid-twenties, he and other farm workers had been working 12 hour days, 7 days a week, and paid less than half the legal minimum wage when they asked the...
Maina Kiai Receives AFL-CIO Human Rights Award
Describing United Nations Special Rapporteur Maina Kiai as “an effective watchdog against crackdowns of freedom of association and assembly,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka presented Kiai with the 2016 AFL-CIO George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award. “Maina...
ILO Forced Labor Protocol in Effect Today
When the employer of a migrant domestic worker takes her passport and refuses to return it if she seeks to leave, that is forced labor. When a family works at a brick kiln to pay off a debt, their children prevented from attending school, that is forced labor. When...
Make People > Profits: UN Special Rapporteur
Millions of workers in the global economy have been disenfranchised from their rights, either tacitly or deliberately by governments, exacerbating “global inequality, poverty, violence and child and forced labor,” says Maina Kiai, United Nations Special Rapporteur on...
Building Alliances to End Gender-Based Violence at Work
Gender-based violence (GBV) is one of the most prevalent human rights violations in the world—and yet not enough is done to prevent it, especially at the workplace. “Without gender equality, we cannot have worker rights, and without worker rights, we cannot have...