Six years ago, the preventable Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh killed 1,134 garment workers in the world’s worst garment industry disaster. Corporate greed, inadequate labor and building code enforcement, and worker exploitation all contributed to the April 24,...
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Brazil Garment Workers’ Union Adopts Women’s Agenda
In a historic achievement, delegates to the 11th Congress of Brazil’s garment worker union federation, CNTRV (National Confederation of Clothing Workers) last week voted for gender parity in leadership and adopted a pro-women’s rights agenda. The union achieved parity...
Kuwait Union Opens Doors to All Migrant Workers
The Kuwait Trade Union Federation (KTUF) this week celebrated the relaunch of a migrant worker office within its headquarters to help address legal cases related to wage theft or other forms of exploitation brought by migrant workers, including domestic workers, in...
Kenya, Kuwait Unions Sign Migrant Workers’ Agreement
The Central Organization of Trade Unions-Kenya (COTU-K) and the Kuwait Trade Union Federation (KTUF) signed a cooperative agreement last week in Kuwait City, formalizing the federations’ effort to jointly address issues affecting workers who migrate from Kenya to...
Liberia Workers Win Large Pay Raise
Benefiting hundreds of miners, forklift drivers and other workers, the United Workers Union of Liberia (UWUL) and ArcelorMittal Liberia (AML)—part of global steel giant ArcelorMittal group—signed their fourth labor contract in Monrovia December 14. The three-year...
Child Labor Problem Urgent: Kyrgyz Workers
A survey conducted this year by the Kyrgyzstan Federation of Trade Unions (KFTU), including unions representing mining and construction workers, found that laws against child labor in the country are inadequate and implementation is uneven, resulting in more than...
Make Every Job a Good Job: Workers Achieve Decent Work Together
Around the world, workers, their unions and other associations are striving to promote the rights of working people at their jobs and in their everyday lives. While every job has value, not all jobs are “good jobs.” Millions of jobs around the world do not offer the...
Migrant Workers & Children Exploited in Kazakhstan
Workers who migrate from Kyrgyzstan to Kazakhstan for jobs often do not receive their wages, are forced to work in unsafe and abusive conditions and even are kidnapped and held against their will in forced labor, according to a new report. “Invisible and Exploited in...
Tunisian Workers Celebrate May Day & Their Union
Chanting support for their union and for worker rights, more than 7,000 members of the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) packed the Menzah Sports Palace in Tunis today in a boisterous, enthusiastic May Day celebration. "Our principles are to defend the...
Brazil Ratifies Domestic Worker Convention
Following years of campaigning by domestic workers and their allies across Brazil, the government in recent days ratified the International Labor Organization Domestic Workers Convention (No. 189), a binding standard in which domestic workers are entitled to full...
Abused as Domestic Worker in Saudi Arabia, Fauzia Muthoni Now Aids Women in Kenya
Struggling to support her family, Fauzia Muthoni left her home outside Nairobi, Kenya for Qatar, where a labor broker promised her work as a receptionist. Instead, she was taken to Saudi Arabia where was forced into domestic work for multiple families and physically...
Ensuring Access to Justice for Workers in Forced Labor
When Fauzia Muthoni arrived in Qatar from Kenya to work as a receptionist and earn money to support her family, the labor agent traveling with her informed Muthoni the job was in Saudi Arabia and escorted her to another plane. She tried calling her family, but...
Forum Opens on Promoting Women Workers’ Rights
To promote the rights of women workers, especially women domestic workers and women farm workers, it is essential to seek solutions to build women's capacity to defend their rights to equality, decent work and an end to violence and abuse, according to Hind Cherrouk,...
Book Launch: Informal Workers and Collective Action
As the number of workers in the informal economy increase around the world, the result is that more and more workers are low paid, with few or no social benefits or job security. In the Dominican Republic, where many in the informal economy are Haitian migrants, the...
Migrant Domestic Worker in South Africa Improves Working Conditions with Union
Prexedes, a domestic worker from Zimbabwe in South Africa, says migrant workers in South Africa often are paid lower wages and suffer harsher working conditions than their South African counterparts. But after joining a union, Prexedes says she has a better salary,...
Migrant Domestic Worker in South Africa: Better Conditions with Union
Prexedes, a domestic worker from Zimbabwe in South Africa, says migrant workers in South Africa often are paid lower wages and suffer harsher working conditions than their South African counterparts. Supporting her three children on her own, Prexedes struggled to pay...
Kenya’s Jayne Njoki Helps Lead Future of Young Workers
As a young woman working in her company’s IT department, Jayne Muthoni Njoki was frustrated by what she says were employer attempts to push her around because of her youth and sex. But rather than quit her job, which she contemplated, she ran for a leadership position...
Sok, 19, Paid Poverty Wages as Domestic Worker in Cambodia
Sok Rathana, 19, has been a domestic worker in Cambodia for two years, working 100 hours a month for $70 while attending high school. Her family is poor, and her mother also is a domestic worker. As in many countries, domestic workers in Cambodia are not covered by...
U.S. Women Activists Connect with Kenyan Women Workers
Five black women activists representing the U.S. labor movement, the Black Women’s Roundtable and other causes working to promote women’s empowerment and gender equality, traveled to Kenya last week to connect with union women from the Central Organization of Trade...
Low-Wage Workers Risk Lives in Cambodia’s Building Boom
In Cambodia's booming construction industry, where up to 250,000 workers toil on building projects during peak season, laborers wear sandals or flip-flops and cloth gloves, if they have gloves at all, their heads covered only with towels or soft hats they bring to...