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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...
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Pact Combats Gender Violence in Lesotho Factories
Leading apparel brands, trade unions and women’s rights organizations sign binding agreements to combat gender-based violence and harassment at key supplier’s factories in Lesotho With support from U.S. labor organizations, collaborative program creates independent...
The High Cost of Low Wages in Haiti: New Report
Haitian garment workers face increasing difficulty in covering basic expenditures as prices soar while wages hover far below the cost of living, according to a new Solidarity Center report. The High Cost of Low Wages in Haiti (2019), a new Solidarity Center survey...
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...
A Step Closer to Ending Gender-Based Violence at Work
A global regulation addressing gender-based violence at work is one step closer to reality following a 10-day meeting of workers, their unions and representatives from business and government—but much work must yet be done to ensure its passage. Participants at the...
UN Report: Freedom of Association Key to Democracy
Freedom of peaceful assembly and association lie at the core of any functioning democratic system, according to a report by the new Annalisa Ciampi, the new United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association. “It is...
Kailash Satyarthi: Unions Essential to Ending Child Labor
Kailash Satyarthi, a Solidarity Center ally, won the Nobel Prize in 2014 for his lifelong efforts to end child labor. He began this work much earlier, in 1986 in Jharkand province—one of India’s poorest regions at the time, a place where child labor was common across...
Report Links World Bank to Uzbekistan Forced Labor
The World Bank is funding half a billion dollars in agricultural projects linked to forced and child labor in Uzbekistan, said Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights (UGF) in a report released today. Even though the Uzbek government...
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...
Empowering Women at Work Focus of High-Level UN Meeting
Hundreds of high-level government delegates at the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) meeting at the United Nations in New York this month will for the first time discuss women’s economic empowerment and the role of labor unions as core to achieving women’s...
‘Without Worker Rights, All Other Rights Are in Jeopardy’
Labor rights are key to all human rights—and ensuring that the global human rights community champion worker rights is essential to addressing the many economic and political challenges throughout the world, according to panelists who spoke today at a United Nations...
Women Nearly Half of Labor Migrants in Africa
An estimated 998,000 African migrants entered South Africa between 2011 and 2015, says Mondli Hlatshwayo, coordinator with the Center for Education Rights and Transformation at the University of Johannesburg, where he researches community and trade union education,...
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...
Building Alliances to Challenge Corporate Power
Women, people of color, indigenous and other disenfranchised and marginalized groups have been hit especially hard by the increasing concentration of transnational corporate power and escalating global economic inequality—but a new report showcases how women and...
5 Union Organizers Imprisoned in Cambodia Released Today
Five leaders of the Collective Union of Movement of Workers (CUMW) in Cambodia were released from detention today after spending nearly a week in prison for seeking to assist striking garment factory workers who sought their support. The Solidarity Center legal team...
Norway Ratification Boosts Fight against Modern Slavery
The following is crossposted from Equal Times. On November 18, 2015, Norway ratified the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Forced Labor Protocol, which strengthens and updates the 1930 Forced Labor Convention (Convention 29) by adding new measures to prevent,...
‘The Nobel Prize Is for Labor Movements around the World’
The Tunisian General Labor Union (Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail, UGTT), a longtime Solidarity Center partner, was at the forefront of the four organizations that recently won the Nobel Peace Prize, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler said today. In a...
‘I Was a Garment Worker and I Know Exploitation’
The “Made in Jordan” label is familiar to U.S. consumers shopping for shirts, jeans and other clothes. Mervat Jumhawi, a Jordanian union organizer, is actively ensuring the largely migrant workforce that cuts and sews these garments does so in safe conditions,...
Good Jobs, Decent Work—Key to UN’s New 15-Year Goals
A vigil tonight at the United Nations kicks off events around the world body’s broad new 17-point agenda that aims in part to end extreme poverty, eradicate hunger and ensure clean water and sanitation. The 193 UN member states have debated the Sustainable Development...