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The Solidarity Center works to ensure all workers, such as Bangladesh garment workers, have access to their legal workplace rights. Credit: Solidarity Center/Balmi Chisim
The Solidarity Center works to ensure that all workers have rights protected under international law and have access to effective legal remedies if those rights are violated.
The Solidarity Center works with workers, unions and other organizations around the world to rewrite the rules so workers can form unions and take collective action to promote their rights and be free from exploitation. The Solidarity Center has assisted workers and unions in countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, Guatemala, Myanmar, Thailand and Ukraine to analyze legislation and develop strategies to defeat repressive legislation and promote laws and regulations consistent with international law.
Our work supports novel litigation at the national and regional levels to expand rights to workers and unions. For example, the Solidarity Center has supported constitutional litigation to ensure domestic workers in South Africa have access to the national workers compensation fund, and is working with lawyers in Bangladesh to support workers in challenging the use of false criminal charges to dismiss and silence workers. The Solidarity Center also supports efforts in regional human rights courts to promote the rights of informal economy workers in Africa and to hold governments accountable for anti-union violence in the Americas.
The Solidarity Center also is working to build accountability for multinational firms in global supply chains that remain largely beyond the reach of the law in countries where their suppliers are located and in their home countries. The lack of accountability is a major driver of worker exploitation in supply chains, including wage theft, unsafe workplaces, violence against workers and attacks against unions.
Educating workers on their rights and how to use them in the workplace is also a key component of our work. Through the International Lawyers Assisting Workers Network (ILAW), we are building a legal community and increasing the capacity of lawyers and activists to effectively use domestic, regional and international laws and institutions. The ILAW Network brings together more than 400 lawyers in some 55 countries.
Global Groups Fear Safety of Honduran Union Leader
The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the Network Against Anti-Union Violence in Honduras are urging the government to drop all charges against Moisés Sánchez, safeguard his protection as a human rights defender under threat, and ensure he can freely...
Worker Rights Lawyers Connect with Allies, Map Next Steps
“There is a human rights crisis around the world—that’s why we are intensifying our work in recognizing the role labor plays in holding government’s accountable and promoting dignity and equality at work,” said Sandra Coliver from the Open Society Foundation, opening...
![Home-based Workers in the Export Garment Sector in Bangladesh: An Exploratory Study in Dhaka City (Wiego, 2012)](https://www.solidaritycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Photo_Home-Based-Bangladesh1.jpg)
Home-based Workers in the Export Garment Sector in Bangladesh: An Exploratory Study in Dhaka City (Wiego, 2012)
Workers in the home-based export garment sector remain an invisible segment of the labor market, and this report is first step toward a systematic documentation of this phenomenon, with special emphasis on employment conditions, worker livelihoods and issues affecting...
![Legal and Policy Tools to Meet Informal Workers’ Demands: Lessons from India (WIEGO, 2012)](https://www.solidaritycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Photo_Legal-and-Policy-Tool.jpg)
Legal and Policy Tools to Meet Informal Workers’ Demands: Lessons from India (WIEGO, 2012)
This report highlights key lessons from a WIEGO pilot project in India examining the nature of the informal economy and the way legal and policy tools can address the concerns of those working in the informal economy. This Solidarity Center report is part of a...
![Solidarity Center 2011 Annual Report](https://www.solidaritycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Solidarity-Center-2011-Board-Report_13.jpg)
Solidarity Center 2011 Annual Report
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![Solidarity Center 2010 Annual Report](https://www.solidaritycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/pubs_annual_report_2010.jpg)
Solidarity Center 2010 Annual Report
Download here.
![Core Labor Rights in Indonesia: A Survey of Violations in the Formal Sector (2010)](https://www.solidaritycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Indonesia.Core-Labor-Rights-in-Indonesia-cover.2010.jpg)
Core Labor Rights in Indonesia: A Survey of Violations in the Formal Sector (2010)
This survey of labor rights in Indonesia finds that although improvements have been made since the fall of the Suharto government, serious violations persist, including: discrimination against women in the workplace; anti-union discrimination by employers;...
![Degradation of Work: Oil and Casualization of Labor in the Niger Delta (2010)](https://www.solidaritycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/pubs_nigeriareport2011.jpg)
Degradation of Work: Oil and Casualization of Labor in the Niger Delta (2010)
This report explores how the degradation of work in the oil-rich Niger Delta jeopardizes the livelihoods and well-being of workers and their families and results in fewer opportunities for Nigerians to improve working and living conditions, especially in local...