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.
November 24 is a symbol of the fight for a decent and safe workplace for more than 4 million garment workers in Bangladesh. On that day nine years ago, Tazreen Fashion factory in Ashulia, on the outskirts of Dhaka, went ablaze taking the lives of 117 workers and...
Millions of street vendors worldwide lost their livelihoods nearly overnight during the pandemic, unable to sell in open markets during lockdowns or unwilling to risk their health to do so. But street vendors in Brazil, through the National Union of Street Vendors...
Worker rights advocates and the international human rights community are expressing sorrow, disbelief and outrage over the horrific fire at the Hashem Foods Ltd., factory in Bangladesh that killed at least 52 workers and more than a dozen children early this week....
Through individual case studies and legal analysis, When the Job Hurts demonstrates the need for domestic workers in South Africa to receive the same coverage under the country's job safety and health compensation law as other workers. Download report.
Freedoms on the Move, a new report by Solidarity Center and CIVICUS, makes clear that many migrant workers and refugees want to have a say in their communities and their workplaces, and in the decisions that affect their lives—and is an urgent call to action for...
A Solidarity Center legal analysis shows the proposed ILO convention on gender-based violence and harassment at work is necessary because no global binding instrument exists that comprehensively addresses violence and harassment in the world of work, including...
Haitian garment workers face increasing difficulty in covering basic expenditures as prices soar while wages hover far below the cost of living. Download here in Creole. Download here in English. Download here in French.
This study by the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) and Solidarity Center finds women workers in Morocco’s fertile Meknes region are making big gains in gender equality on the job through their union, the Confédération Démocratique du Travail (CDT)....
Although the government of Uzbekistan has made progress on ending child and adult forced labor in the cotton fields after more than a decade of international pressure, a new report finds that forced labor remains rampant in other arenas of Uzbek life, affecting...