Dec 12, 2024
Rallies, activist sessions, labor platforms, global gatherings and more—-during this year’s 16 Days of Violence Against Women, Solidarity Center’s diverse efforts around the world are all centered on the same goal: ratification and implementation of a treaty to end gender-based violence and harassment at work and action to end GBVH in countries that had not yet ratified the treaty.
Between November 25 and December 10, International Human Rights Day, activists worldwide are raising attention to the more than 743 million people who have experienced job-related violence or harassment, and are pressing for countries to ratify and adhere to International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 190. Adopted in 2019, C190 seeks to prevent and address violence and harassment in the world of work that includes gender-based violence and harassment.
So far, 45 countries have ratified the convention, and union activists around the world are campaigning to ensure workers experience tangible results that address the harassment and violence many face every day at work because of their gender. In countries that have not yet ratified C190, activists utilizing collective bargaining as a tool to prevent and end GBVH.
As stated on the C190 Arc Task Force, a new website backed by a coalition of activists including the Solidarity Center: “No one should have to endure gender-based violence and harassment at work.”
Gayan Prasad of the National Postal Telecommunication Union in Sri Lanka takes part in a 16 Days of Activism training. Credit: Solidarity Center/Ponniah Yogeshwari
Worldwide Action to End GBVH
Globally, one in 15 workers have experienced gender-based violence with Black and Indigenous workers experiencing higher rates of GBVH. Unions, at the center of addressing GBVH, also need awareness of the issues and opportunity to join with GBVH campaigns.
“Traditional trade unions will need to think of new strategies,” said Gustavo Gonzalez, United Nations Philippines resident coordinator. Speaking at an event in the Philippines during the 16 Days of Action, he noted the importance of organizing, along with anticipating the future of work that will disproportionately impact women workers.
At the event, a coalition of women union leaders in the Philippines launched a gendered analysis of the labor movement’s 15-point agenda to address women’s persistent challenges in violence, segregated workforce participation, and representation in decision-making processes.
In Sri Lanka, where the country has not ratified C190, five union leaders and members from sectors such as health care and the informal economy took part in an activism session in Colombo that highlighted the importance of C190 and strategies for securing its ratification. Participants shared action plans for raising awareness and disseminating the information at the union and workplace levels and presented a petition to the government urging ratification of C190.
Global Conferences Highlight GBVH
Solidarity Center participants in two conferences joined union and feminist leaders from around the world in Bangkok during the 16 Days of Activism.
At the Feminist Forum on Migration and Displacement, the Solidarity Center brought participants together in a two-day migration forum to explore key issues shaping the realities of women and gender-diverse people in migration and displacement, including climate change, discrimination, civic participation and organizing, and war, conflict and occupation. The forum, held in advance of the Women in Migration Network (WIMN), sought to foster meaningful discussions and build strategies that will drive lasting change.
Also in Bangkok, the Solidarity Center joined thousands of activists, feminists, artists who came together in discussions, performances and conversations at the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) forum. Bringing together health care workers from Palestine and South Africa and domestic workers from Peru and Kenya working in Jordan, the Solidarity Center held an interactive strategy session with participants around building capacity to propose remedies for addressing decent work in the care economy. “Elevating Care as Critical Infrastructure: Workers Uniting through Collective Action,” was co-sponsored with the Asia Floor Wage Alliance and International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF).
In highlighting unions’ ongoing progress in preventing and eliminating GBVH, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) found women union members continue to lead the struggle for gender-equal and violence-free workplaces. The ITUC released Unions in Action to End Violence and Harassment in the World of Work which includes the latest survey of union action for the ratification and implementation of C190.
Dec 9, 2024
Gold miners in Colombia won their first-ever contract, one that included an annual 3.5 percent wage increase and coverage of all sick leave up to 180 days. The collective bargaining agreement, signed with international corporation Zijin Continental Gold, critically incorporates respect and protection of workers’ rights on the job.
“I’m proud to advocate for workers’ rights and benefits at the Zijin Continental Gold Company. That’s what we seek: to protect workers and ensure they and their families have a better quality of life,” says Sergio Alexander Moreno Moreno, president of Sintramienergética Seccional Buriticá. The union includes more than 450 members at the Buriticá branch and 4,000 members nationwide.
The miners endure difficult conditions with low pay and, over 15 years, had won several arbitration awards. With Solidarity Center support, workers reached the August agreement with the company through negotiation and joint dialogue with the government among representatives of governments, employers and workers on issues of common interest relating to economic and social policies.
The union also negotiated creation of a Labor Dialogue Committee to monitor the contract and ensure its compliance, an essential part of the agreement, says Daniel Esneider Valencia Duque, secretary of collective affairs and labor disputes.
The new contract for gold miners is key to establishing worker rights, says Sergio Moreno, union president.
Achieving Gains with Partnership
To achieve the significant gains for workers, the Solidarity Center engaged with union leadership in a comparative analysis of past arbitration agreements and offered communication support during the bargaining process.
“They helped us draft our fair list of demands, when we reached the collective bargaining stage,” says Cristian Rizo, union general secretary. “The Solidarity Center has greatly supported us in our growth.”
Bolstering skills training and strengthening miners collaboration is part of Solidarity Center’s regional efforts in Brazil, Colombia and Peru, where multinational corporations force miners to endure long days in difficult and often dangerous conditions.
Sharing the benefits of their union in a video, workers describe how they will benefit with the new contract, and urge others to join unions to defend their rights.
“Unity is strength.”
Nov 27, 2024
Some 500 factory workers are on strike in Yangon, Myanmar, demanding a return to the job for colleagues who joined them in seeking decent wages and working hours and a workplace free from violence and abuse. Since the strike began in November, more than 50 workers have been fired. On November 22, the company brought in a group of 20 agents from the repressive military junta to threaten workers with physical violence to break the strike.
The members of the Federation of General Workers of Myanmar (FGWM) at the Charis Sculpture factory went on strike in November after the employer did not comply with the terms of a new contract negotiated in July.
The Hong Kong-owned Wise Unicorn Industrial Ltd., owner of Charis Sculpture, has an estimated annual revenue between $10 million and $50 million. Yet in October, when workers protested the employer’s refusal to pay overtime as promised, workers described being followed out of the factory, with two physically attacked.
After the workers went on strike inside the factory November 6 and boosted their list of demands to include dismissal of the director who they say assaulted two workers, the company fired 13 workers, including strike leaders.
“He dragged me and then pushed me with force. I fell down,” one worker told the union. (Names are not used to protect workers’ privacy.)
According to workers, the company says the workers were dismissed for violating the employment contract and “will be dealt with by existing law,” which workers say is an unlawful dismissal.
By November 11, workers were denied entry to the factory and nearly 350 workers remain outside on strike.
Standing Strong Despite Danger
Since the February 2021 military coup, thousands of people have been killed and many more imprisoned, with union leaders especially targeted. Workers—women in particular—took an early lead in the protests against the regime, with the country’s 450,000 garment workers especially active in organizing civil disobedience actions and shutting down factories.
Protests against low wages and poor working conditions remain risky. Yet workers at Charis, a manufacturer of cold-cast bronze, fine porcelain and alloy statues for export to Europe and the United States, are standing strong for their demands. They seek to receive family-supporting pay, including a daily wage of 9,000 Myanmar kyats ($4.28), up from 7,800 kyats ($3.71).
With overtime pay essential for basic support, they call for a 2,000 Myanmar kyats (.98 cents) per hour overtime wage, from the current 1,700 (.81 cents). The workers say many need overtime but the employer does not select them—and overtime pay is “important for workers because the basic wage is not enough,” said one worker.
Women workers especially face physical and verbal harassment, according to the union, which is seeking safe workplace conditions, an end to verbal and physical abuse and an environment with suitable temperature. They also are seeking employer-paid medical care and an end to wage cuts when workers take leave.
Nov 15, 2024
Nearly 2,000 workers at textile factories in Casablanca, Morocco, now can receive decent pay, health care protection and a voice on the job after joining the Moroccan Workers’ Union (UMT) and the federation of textile workers.
“We joined the union primarily to preserve our dignity, which some managers have trampled on,” said one worker, who voted for the union. (Names are not used to protect workers’ privacy.)
All 605 workers in three factories in Casablanca and the majority of the more than 1,000 workers in four additional factories in the area’s large textile industry joined the union.
With a union, workers at textile factories are able to address workplace safety and GBVH. Credit: Hicham Ahmaddouh
Without a union, said one worker, “we couldn’t find solutions to our issues or secure our legal rights, which the company has neglected for more than five years.”
Workers at the leather, textiles, and ready-made garment factories are involved in leather production, sewing, dyeing, supplies and garment manufacturing. They say they often were not paid wages, and received insufficient compensation when often required to work overtime—or engage in fewer hours than specified by the government.
“Wage payments are often delayed, and we only receive them after striking and protesting,” one worker stated when describing conditions before the union representation.
Another worker described being “required to work up to 240 hours a month instead of the legal 191, which should qualify as overtime, yet we receive no compensation.”
Developing Outreach
Achieving success in mobilizing and assisting textile workers to form unions was part of a two-year campaign involving Solidarity Center support in providing data and analysis of key employers, supply chains and other information.
Together with the UMT, the Solidarity Center trained a team led by two women and one man to head up the organizing drive. Over the past year, the team conducted one-on-one outreach at the factories, located in a difficult to access industrial zone. They met with company officials, organized offsite outreach meetings and collected worker stories about their needs and challenges in accessing their fundamental rights.
The outreach effort is essential for expanding the union’s efforts to broaden worker rights.
“Organizing textile workers is crucial to strengthening the union’s capacity to advocate for workers’ rights, secure demands and build solidarity within the Moroccan Labor Union and the National Union of Textile, Leather, and Ready-Made Garment Workers,” said Al-Arabi Hamouk, general secretary of the National Federation of Textile, Leather and Ready-Made Garment Workers.
Textile workers sought improved occupational health and safety in the factories and wanted to ensure the companies’ adherence to labor laws and payment to the country’s social protection fund
“Since 2023, we have been deprived of health coverage because the company hasn’t paid the required contributions, even though they are deducted from our wages,” one worker said.
By forming a union, abuses such as gender-based violence and harassment could be addressed, according to a factory worker.
She said in the past, workers suffered “from verbal and sexual harassment by some managers, as well as arbitrary individual and collective dismissals when demand decreases or when we ask for our legal rights.”
“The Solidarity Center played a critical role in the success of the campaign within the textile sector,” said Hamouk. “The organizing team demonstrated the ability to strategize, and address challenges.”
Assisting textile workers in forming unions moves forward their ability to achieve decent wages, safe workplaces and essential health care coverage—and advances their democratic rights to freely form unions.
Said one union member: “We achieved dignity and the freedom to associate, which was previously denied.”
Nov 12, 2024
Drivers in Cebu, Philippines, are staying strong as Foodpanda challenges a ruling by a government agency that determined they are employees of the corporation and must receive around $128,000 in lost wages.
Foodpanda is appealing the decision the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) issued in September that required the company to reinstate a 2018–2020 compensation plan that cut driver’s pay by more than half. The ruling also stated that “with no ability to negotiate or alter their fees, riders are more like employees receiving a standard wage rate than independent contractors.”
Foodpanda is challenging a court ruling determining drivers in Cebu are employees who must receive decent pay, safety and health protections and health care.
Credit: Solidarity Center / Miguel Antivola
As with other app-based rideshare and passenger delivery corporations around the world, Foodpanda seeks to classify workers as independent contractors to avoid labor laws requiring pay, safety and health protections, and health care.
“For the five years I’ve worked for Foodpanda, they haven’t offered any type of leave or financial support for medicine,” said Abraham Monticalbo, Jr. The RIDERS-SENTRO (National Union of Food Delivery Riders) member described his experiences working for a company that is not required to adhere to labor protections: “We only get paid when we get an order. If you don’t get bookings, you don’t get paid.”
Foodpanda’s appeal “is just a small amount for the company, yet they’re being stingy with the riders. It’s clear that they don’t really care about our well-being,” Monticalbo said at a union press conference.
Seeking Fairness on the Job
The NLRC ruling on Foodpanda and Delivery Hero Logistics Philippines, Inc., would mean “we can finally receive our earnings that should have long benefited our families and ourselves,” Monticalbo said. “Because of our win, we receive justice.”
The Cebu Foodpanda union chapter of RIDERS-SENTRO has sought fair wages and transparency in the Foodpanda app on scheduling, compensation and suspension. In April, more than 200 Filipino app-based delivery riders took part in a unity ride around Cebu province to protest wage theft.
The Foodpanda app–via the company–sets the rules and is unaccountable to drivers, unilaterally updating acceptance rates, special hours and more. “If you are suddenly tagged for suspension and you follow due process in the app as we were instructed, you will get suspended before they take any action,” said Monticalbo. “Even if you do it right, the suspension is still ongoing. We can’t do anything about it since the tag is still in the system.”
Like Foodpanda, many app-based companies often deploy a “bait-and-switch” tactic, offering benefits to riders only to change the terms later.
“Management treated us well before. If I can compare it to what’s happening now, it’s so far off,” said Monticalbo. Drivers still do their job “because they already left their previous jobs. If they don’t deliver, they don’t earn.”
After the ruling supporting drivers, RIDERS-SENTRO invited the company to enter into discussions for a collective bargaining agreement. With a union, said Monticalbo, the riders are confident of their ability to win their rights on the job even with Foodpanda’s appeal
“Because of the union, we have the fighting spirit for this. We realize our power, our rights.”
