The Solidarity Center is fighting to incorporate worker rights into world trade and investment agreements, to hold governments and international financial institutions (IFIs) accountable for the hardships their policies often create for workers, and to bring fair rules and values to the global economy.
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| A cargo ship passes through the Suez Canal. |
The current global financial crisis is also an unemployment crisis, affecting all workers across industrialized, emerging, and developing economies. The crisis has revealed what trade unions have long argued: to promote growth and reduce poverty, we must regulate our financial markets, uphold our international systems of social and economic rights, and strive to provide decent work for all.
Workers around the world are losing their jobs and their homes, suffering under a global economic system that for too long has protected the rights of corporations over the rights of workers. Competition has become a race to the bottom, pushing wages lower and lower and forcing governments to sacrifice basic labor protections to attract corporate investors.
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| Workers in Swaziland toil in an export processing zone. |
Trade and investment agreements made without regard for worker rights have depressed rather than improved workers' living standards. By imposing severe conditions designed to promote labor market flexibility and market liberalization, IFI policies too often undermine workers' right to form unions and bargain collectively, exacerbate financial instability, fuel inequalities, and create hardships for the least advantaged. A proliferation of export processing zones (EPZs) have become notorious for labor exploitation.
The Solidarity Center and its trade union partners are documenting and exposing gross violations of fundamental worker rights, drawing attention to the challenges faced by an increasingly globalized workforce. Together we are strengthening broad coalitions that promote our vision of economic and social justice, and strive tobuild a fairer and greener global economy.
Solidarity Center Partner Urges Release of Trade Unionist. Hanafi Rustandi, President of the Indonesian Seafarers' Union, has persistently supported the International Transport Federation (ITF) campaign to gain an Iranian Trade Union leader's release from solitarity confinement.
Shona Sculptors Are Part of Zimbabwe's Union Movement. Shona sculptors in Zimbabwe are part of a 2 million member association of informal workers created by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, a longtime Solidarity Center partner.
Global Labor Movement Marks 2nd World Day of Social Justice. The International Trade Union Confederation marks the 2nd World Day of Social Justice on February 20 by calling for an end to the prevailing neo-liberal model of economic globalization, which has brought about the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
Global Wages Continue to Fall Despite Economic Recovery, Says ILO. Despite indications that the economy is on the rebound, the International Labor Organization in its latest study on global wages says that income for workers worldwide is likely to decrease further in 2009.
No More "Doing Business" as Usual for World Bank. The Solidarity Center joined the global labor movement in applauding the World Bank’s decision to scrap a controversial indicator in its “Doing Business” publication that gave higher ratings to countries with poor worker rights protections.
October 7 Is World Day for Decent Work. The Solidarity Center and its partners joined the global labor movement in observing the first World Day for Decent Work on October 7, 2008.
Asian Labor Network on International Financial Institutions. In Southeast Asia, the Solidarity Center formed a network to raise workers' voice in the global economy. This network is teaching workers to hold governments and international banks accountable for their families' economic security.
IUF General Secretary Sees World Food Crisis as Crime Against Humanity. More than 800 million people around the world, including those who labor in agriculture, are in a desperate struggle to feed themselves and their families.
Promoting International Solidarity. Indonesian labor hero Hanafi Rustandi, whose courageous actions helped secure vital medical attention for imprisoned Iranian bus drivers union president Mansoor Osanloo, recently visited the United States for a round of networking and to promote international solidarity within the transport sector.
Global Policy Network. The Solidarity Center is harnessing the power of research to support the fight for worker rights worldwide.
Worker Education Programs. In cooperation with its union partners, the Solidarity Center develops gender-inclusive worker education programs on the global economy.
Solidarity Center Publications
Learn More
- ITUC Global Financial Crisis Unions' Watch
- Global Unions: Challenging Transnational Capital through Cross-Border Campaigns. This publication, edited by Kate Brofenbrenner, is a collection of original research from labor activists around the world on the range of innovative strategies that unions use to adapt to different industries, countries, and corporations in taking on the challenge of mounting multi-country organizing campaigns.
- Good Jobs, Bad Jobs, No Jobs (Global Policy Network, 2005). This report provides a comprehensive study of the informal work situation in five countries — Egypt, El Salvador, India, Russia, and South Africa
