During the COVID-19 pandemic, members of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, a Solidarity Center partner, tested workers for fever. Credit: PGFTU
Each year, more than 2 million workers die on the job—more than 6,000 a day worldwide. Hundreds of millions more workers a year suffer from non-fatal job-related accidents and illnesses.
The global coronavirus pandemic highlighted and exacerbated the vast inequities facing working people as many risked exposure to the virus without protective safety equipment, tending to sick patients, staffing grocery stores and driving public transport.
In partnership with the Solidarity Center, unions negotiated stepped-up protections and improved wages for workers who risked their lives on the front lines of the crisis, and supported unions as they worked with governments and employers to ensure those furloughed or laid off during the pandemic received wages and social protections such as access to food distribution and unemployment compensation.
Around the world, the Solidarity Center supports networks of unions that are pushing for workplace health and safety measures, such as in Serbia, where unions created a national network of trade union activists to improve workplace safety and health monitoring, and bargain collectively with employers to expand such protections for all workers, regardless of whether they are union members.
On April 28, workers and worker rights activists like the Solidarity Center observe World Day for Safety and Health at Work, an annual day of remembrance for workers who died or were injured on the job and a day to renew the struggle for decent work—family-supporting wages, sick leave and other benefits and safe and healthy working conditions.
More than five years after the Rana Plaza and Tazreen Fashion disasters killed more than a thousand garment workers and injured many more, workers in ready-made garment factories in Bangladesh still struggle to make ends meet. And even now, garment workers often are...
Coal miners in Ukraine have protested underground over the past 15 days to demand months of unpaid wages after 33 miners at the state-owned Lysychansk coal mines refused to leave from their underground shift. The miners are demanding wages they did not receive from...
Two media workers have been murdered each week on average this year—73 to date, making it likely the number of those killed will meet or exceed that of 2017, when 82 media workers were murdered, according to data compiled by the International Federation of Journalists...
Building worker power is fundamental to achieving worker rights, and organizing strong unions is fundamental to achieving worker power--and this hands-on guide gives trainers the tools they need to build unity and ultimately, change the rules of the game. Download...
Colombian trade unionists face daily threats of violence and assassination, attempts by employers, paramilitaries, guerrillas and the state to stop dissent, silence workers and destroy the only mechanism that gives workers some control over their economic lives: their...
The report looks at Indonesia's migrant worker system, which is under intense scrutiny over allegations of contributing to debt bondage and trafficking of migrant workers. It also examines efforts of government and non-government organizations to combat trafficking,...
"The Struggle for Worker Rights in Jordan" lays out steps the Jordanian government, Jordanian unions, multinational enterprises and actors on the international stage can take to ensure respect for and enforcement of worker rights in Jordan. By following this path,...
"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...