The Solidarity Center assists workers in the informal economy, such as market vendors in Zimbabwe, come together to assert their rights and raise living standards. Credit: ZCIEA
Some 2 billion people work in the informal sector as domestic workers, taxi drivers, and street vendors, many of them women workers. Informal economy work now comprises the majority of jobs in many countries and is increasing worldwide. Although informal economy workers can create up to half of a country’s gross national product, most have no access to health care, sick leave or support when they lose their jobs, and they have little power to advocate for living wages and safe and secure work.
The Solidarity Center is part of a broad-based movement in dozens of countries to help workers in the informal economy come together to assert their rights and raise living standards. For instance, three affiliates of the Central Organization of Trade Unions-Kenya (COTU-K), a Solidarity Center partner, signed agreements with informal worker associations to unionize the workers, enabling them to access to the country’s legal protections for formal-sector employees.
Find out more about informal workers gaining power by joining together in unions and worker associations in this Solidarity Center-supported publication, Informal Workers and Collective Action: A Global Perspective.
On June 16 International Domestic Workers Day, the Solidarity Center salutes women union leaders around the world who are urging governments and employers to recognize care as a public good and a human right, and to provide care workers, including migrant workers,...
Soon after organizing to advocate for formal recognition as workers and protections at work, domestic workers in Ukraine won a significant victory when President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a new law on May 22 regulating domestic work and affording new protections to...
In a first for Ukraine, in-home childcare workers including nannies and babysitters organized and then elected domestic worker Tetiana Lauhina to head their new labor organization, Union of Home Staff (UHS). "[My colleagues] are amazingly hard-working and...
Unions in the Honduran maquila sector bargain to improve work conditions and address gender-based violence at work, and so provide options for those who may migrate to seek jobs, a Solidarity Center report finds. Download in English and Spanish.
In response to mounting public pressure, companies have moved rapidly to launch media campaigns highlighting their commitment to a green future. The global garment industry is no different. Behind much of this “greenwashing” remains the reality that the garment supply...
"The Persistence of Private Power: Sacrificing Rights for Wages," a qualitative survey of human rights violations against live-in domestic workers in South Africa, is co-published by IZWI Domestic Workers Alliance—a network of domestic workers in Johannesburg that...
Download here.
The report identifies initiatives from around the world that enable migrant workers to obtain redress for wage theft through administrative and judicial mechanisms. These initiatives shift risks and burdens of wage recovery away from workers and onto government and...
A survey of garment workers in Sri Lanka, conducted in partnership with Solidarity Center and IndustriALL, found employer opposition and harassment has limited their ability to form unions and address workplace rights violations such as increased workloads and work...