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.
At least five union activists were murdered in Guatemala in 2018, and union leaders and members in Guatemala and Honduras suffered dozens of incidents over the past year for standing up for worker rights, including restriction of union rights, intimidation,...
Workers in Morocco are protesting unilateral moves by the government to restrict strikes and limit other worker freedoms and are collecting signatures against a draft bill, now in parliament. “The path the government wishes to follow by introducing this legislation on...
One union activist from the Workers' Union of the Gildan Villanueva S.A. (SITRAGAVSA) was murdered and at least three others attacked during recent protests against the Honduran government’s efforts to privatize the country’s education and health systems, according to...
"Trafficking of Women and Children in Indonesia" examines the many forms of human labor trafficking, their causes and the demographics fueling the rise of women and children in forced and exploitative labor. Download here.
In this second report of Solidarity Center's Justice for All series, worker rights researcher Lance Compa assesses how two decades of civil war affected democracy, economy and social justice in Sri Lanka. Compa compares Sri Lanka’s labor law and practice...
The first report in the Solidarity Center's "Justice for All" series, takes a hard look at Mexico’s century-long fight for independent, democratic trade unions and social justice. Author Lance Compa puts Mexico’s labor law and practice to the test against...