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.
Ten years after the multi-story Rana Plaza building collapsed in Bangladesh, killing 1,138 workers and injuring thousands more, garment workers and their unions say that although safety has improved in some instances, much more needs to be done. And fundamental...
Flagging a high number of work-related deaths and life-altering injuries in the country during the first ten months of this year, Solidarity Center partners Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine (KVPU) and Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine (FPU) are...
In a powerful demonstration of support for strengthening worker rights to ensure thriving democracies and prosperous economies, representatives from governments, unions and philanthropic organizations met in Washington, D.C., yesterday to renew their commitment...
Haitian garment workers face increasing difficulty in covering basic expenditures as prices soar while wages hover far below the cost of living. Download in English and Haitian Creole.
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...
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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...