More than 40,000 garment workers in Honduras are now covered by collective bargaining agreements following long-time Solidarity Center support for organizing. Credit: Solidarity Center/Molly McCoy
Unions promote a higher level of economic equality in societies and are a fundamental element of a free and democratic society. Freedom of association—workers’ right to form and join unions and pursue a voice on the job and in their communities—is the foundation for worker rights.
The Solidarity Center trains union organizers and provides support for unions around the world. We support organizing campaigns, educate workers about their legal right to form a union and promote strong labor laws.
The Solidarity Center works directly on the ground with workers to form unions and win collective bargaining agreements. For instance, in Cambodia, 8,000 hotel and casino workers at Nagaworld casino won large wage increases and reinstatement of their dismissed union president following Solidarity Center union organizing support and legal assistance. And in Honduras, long-time Solidarity Center support for organizing has resulted in more than 40,000 garment workers, mostly women, now covered by collective bargaining agreements.
Read the “Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association” report presented in 2016 to the United Nations.
Thousands of workers in Mexico recently formed an independent union at a GM auto plant in Silao, in central Mexico, voting out a corporate-supported union that did not operate in their interest. On the latest episode of The Solidarity Center Podcast, Maria Alejandra...
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights this week issued an historic ruling that affirmed a worker’s right to strike. The case arises out of a collective dispute in 1996 when efforts by the Union of Workers of the Judicial Body to negotiate a new collective agreement...
Striking workers at NagaWorld hotel and casino complex in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, petitioned several embassies and consulates this week asking them to contact the government about the arrests of union leaders and urge officials to respect human rights. During a police...
Millions of workers in Asia often risk their lives in unsafe and unhealthy workplaces. Through its network of more than 200 regional and national organizations in 14 Asian countries, including sector, national and global unions, ANROEV achieved concrete, worker-led...
A September 2013 Dominican court ruling taking away citizenship from many migrants means they will be excluded from any activity that requires official identification, including working in the formal sector, attending school, opening a bank account, accessing health...
This report looks at the political and economic context within which Sri Lankan unions have attempted to respond to migrant workers, unions' role in the key governance and policy mechanisms that pertain to labor migration, and the way the Sri Lankan labor movement...
This report look at South African labor’s complicated engagement with migrant workers by examining the migration policy debate, labor’s response to the xenophobic attacks of 2008 and two organizing campaign in the agricultural sector. It sheds light on how labor...
This report synthesizes a two-year project. Part one consisted of desk and case study research conducted by telephone in Jordan and the Dominican Republic looking into cases where unions had made significant changes in their approach to migrant worker organizing. Part...
This report explores the challenges of empowering domestic workers in South Africa through the traditional trade union focus on worker rights, democratic voice and collective action. This Solidarity Center report is part of a multiyear research project, funded by the...