For more than 10 years, union women who work at factories, on farms, in restaurants, taxis and offices campaigned for an international treaty to end gender-based violence at work. In 2019, they achieved a huge success when the International Labor Organization (ILO) adopted Convention 190 to end violence and harassment at work.
Authors of a new book share these women’s stories on the latest Solidarity Center Podcast and describe the powerful movement they created collaborating with human rights, feminist, disability rights and other organizations around the world.
“These are garment workers, domestic workers, agricultural workers from all over the world, and have been told their whole lives, ‘Well, you can’t do that. You can’t negotiate a global treaty.’ It’s absolutely false.”
Along with Runge and Jane Pillinger, co-authors of “Stopping Gender-Based Violence and Harassment at Work: The Campaign for an ILO Convention,” the episode highlights South African union activist Brenda Modise, who describes her experiences on the front lines of the campaign
“The thing about this convention is that it brings women together across the world, irrespective of your age, irrespective of your culture, irrespective of all the things. It doesn’t matter whether you speak English, you speak Portuguese, you speak French, it brings us together. As soon as you say C190, it brings women together and it makes a force,” says Modise.
“One of our main conclusions is that really remarkable things happen when women stand in their own power,” said Pillinger.
Adds Runge: “Only through collective action with freedom of association and collective bargaining is it really possible to truly prevent and eradicate gender-based violence and harassment in the world of work.”
“Unions in my country are not fully aware of the AfCFTA,” says Sierra Leone Labor Congress (SLLC) Secretary General Max Conteh.
Similarly, trade unions in Mali are yet to familiarize themselves with the agreement and its provisions, says Union Nationale des Travailleurs de Mali (UNTM) General Secretary Seydou Diarra.
In Burkina Faso, “[W]e were not consulted,” says Confédération Nationale des Travailleurs de Burkina (CNTB) Secretary General Augustin Blaise Hien—adding that the AfCFTA is not well synchronized with the country’s existing national plans. AfCFTA creates the largest free trade area in the world measured by the number of countries participating, connecting 1.3 billion people across 55 countries with a combined gross domestic product (GDP) valued at $3.4 trillion. The agreement, which was ratified by the required number of countries in 2019 and came into force last year, is designed to increase intra-African commerce through trade liberalization and enhanced regulatory harmonization and coordination across African states—including a process that will gradually eliminate tariffs on 90 percent of goods.
For example, worker rights and safety improvements cannot be realized under provisions of the AfCFTA until the region’s governments improve current labor laws—or their enforcement systems—say unions. Niger’s current mechanism for applying labor rights, such as labor inspections, does not yet present enough guarantees, says Union Syndicale des Travailleurs du Niger (USTN) Secretary General Alain Adikan. And, in Ghana, lack of resources detracts from the ability of various government agencies to promote and protect the rights of workers and their unions, says Ghana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) Labor Research and Policy Institute Deputy Director Prince Asafu-Adjaye.
And say some West African unions, tighter rules are needed to protect African markets. Countries that import more than they export, like Niger, are potentially disadvantaged under certain provisions of the AfCFTA agreement, says Adikan.
“[It] could lead to enormous losses for a country like ours due to the removal of customs barriers… and can have dire consequences on the purchasing power of workers,” he says.
With Solidarity Center support, the Organization of Trade Unions of West Africa (OTUWA) is developing and sharing a regional position paper on how to address worker rights and promote a decent work agenda within the continental agreement—with participation of the Federation of African Journalists—to educate the public on what is at stake. With its members, OTUWA is focused on mobilizing civil society organizations to better protect consumers’ and working people’s interests as implementation proceeds.
This month eight countries—Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Rwanda, Tanzania and Tunisia—launched the Guided Trade Initiative. The first products to be traded under AfCFTA include ceramic tiles, coffee, corn starch, processed meat products, sugar and tea.
As the world witnesses some of the greatest challenges to democratic governments since the 1930s, unions offer a strong and essential counter to the trend, according to Cornell University Professor Angela Cornell.
“Many studies show that organized labor has played critical role in developing and defending democracy. The organized working class was the primary carrier of democracy,” Cornell said today at the International Lawyers Assisting Workers Network (ILAW) Conference opening plenary.
More than 130 labor lawyers from 42 countries meeting October 7–9 also focused their final day on developing plans for Network’s coming years.
The Solidarity Center launched the ILAW Network in December 2018 as a global hub for worker rights lawyers to facilitate innovative litigation, help spread the adoption of pro-worker legislation and defeat anti-worker laws.
Cornell listed the ways in which unions fuel democracy, including by providing a counterviling role to corporate power.
Further, said Cornell, “new research on the role of unions and in building solidarity among their members demonstrates the ways in which unions can bridge racial and national divides. Union members are less likely to support extreme views.”
Economic inequality is a destabiizing influence in most countries, Cornell said, and unions decrease inequality.
“Unions have been instrumental in the passsage of labor protections and the social safety net, including social security, minimum wage and overtime, workplace heath and safety and medical leave, among others.”
Unions Build Democracy in Latin America, Africa
Ken Roberts, a professor at Cornell University and book contributor, overviewed how unions have been bulwarks of democracy throughout Latin America.
“Labor has played a central role in trying to restore citizenship rights,” said Roberts. Since the 1960s–1980s, when unions suffered setbacks during military dictatorships and neoliberal reforms that prioritized the interests of the wealthy over working people, the key challenge has been to build broad coalitions, he said.
ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow
By joining with feminist movements, indigineous communities and territorially-based urban community networks, unions have created strong and successful coaltions. Since late 1990s as part of social pushback against neoliberal model, 14 countries have elected progressive governments and labor has been an important part of moving this unprecedented number of elections, he said.
Most recently, unions were part of successful coalitions that elected progressive governments in Honduras and Colombia and are constructing broad democratic fronts against new challenges from ethnonationalist and extreme conservative groups.
In Africa, “more often than not, unions were the only force fighting decolonization,” said Evance Kalula, chair of International Labor Organization (ILO) Committee on Freedom of Association and emeritus prof of law at the University of Capetown. “Formal and informal collaboration between unions as agents of change and nationalist movements.”
Kalula and co-author Chanda Chungu, contributed the chapter on “African Perspectives on Labor Rights as Enhancers of Democratic Governance.”
Julia Lopez Lopez, a professor at the University of Barcelona, described how unions are standing up to corporations that are using the new model of app-based work to exploit transportaton workers.
“The case of transport sector is one of the cases that show unions are trying to create new strategies against market intervention against multinational efforts to liberalize labor rights,” she said.
Lopez recently participated in research projects on precarious work and social rights led by the Working Lives Research Institute.
Closing the Conference, Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), overviewed the challenges facing workers and their advocates and pointed to recent legal successes as well, including an agreement that the ITUC and ILO achieved with the Qatar government that ensures more rights for migrant workers, including the freedom to leave their jobs and seek alternative employment.
Participants in the afternoon plenary at the International Lawyers Assisting Workers Network (ILAW) Global Conference heard updates on how trade agreements are advancing worker rights and learned strategies for incorporating forced labor bans and protecting workers’ freedom to form unions.
Eric Gottwald, AFL-CIO
With a focus on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), Eric Gottwald and Pablo Franco opened the panel on Trade and Labor Law Developments by describing how the 2020 agreement benefits workers.
The USMCA’s Rapid Response Mechanism was a game-changer, said Gottwald, an attorney at the AFL-CIO. The mechanism addresses freedom of association and collective bargaining violations down to the company level.
“Anyone can file a claim against a specific facility and there is an investigation and remedy that reach down to company level in way trade agreements never had before,” he said.
USMCA, which replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), is especially helpful in furthering new Mexican labor law reform that seeks to dismantle the endemic union protection contract system that does not benefit workers, Gottwald and Franco said.
Pablo Franco. Credit: Solidarity Center
More than 130 labor lawyers from 42 countries are meeting in Brussels October 7–9 for the second global conference of the International Lawyers Assisting Workers (ILAW) Network, where members set an ambitious agenda for advocacy, litigation and education.
The Solidarity Center launched the ILAW Network in December 2018 as a global hub for worker rights lawyers to facilitate innovative litigation, help spread the adoption of pro-worker legislation and defeat anti-worker laws.
Strategies for Addressing Forced Labor Through Trade
Franz Ebert, ILO. Credit: Solidarity Center
Since 2016, forced labor has increased globally from 25 million to 27 million people, with the majority in the private sector as state-imposed forced labor has decreased, said Franz Ebert, from the International Labor Organization (ILO).
“Forced labor is a structural phenomenon to exploit workers,” he said. Concentrated corporate power and ownership, outsourcing, governance gaps and irresponsible sourcing practices combine with poverty, discrimination and limited worker rights protections so that it is clear forced labor does not occur randomly but can be traced to root causes.
Ebert reviewed western countrie’s efforts to include forced labor bans in treaties, including the European Union which is proposing a Forced Labor Trade Ban that would prohibit sale of all goods made with forced labor: imported goods, goods for export and EU goods for domestic consumption Implementation would be entrusted with member states authorities.
In the United States, Ebert noted that application of the U.S. Forced Labor Clause is increasting traction, with 43 forced labor enforcement actions between 1991 and 2018 and 32 between 2019 and 2021.
Tibisay Morgandi, WTO. Credit: Solidarity Center
While the World Trade Organization (WTO) may not appear as a likely avenue to support labor rights, said Jeffrey Vogt, panel moderator, panelists Lorand Bartels and Tibisay Morgandi offered strategies for moving forced labor bans through the WTO.
Bartels, a professor of international law at Cambridge University, compared the U.S. and EU approaches to blocking goods made by forced labor through trade, with an eye to WTO approval of such bans.
After outlining a series of options for worker rights advocates seeking to pursue trade bans on goods made with forced labor through the WTO, Morgandi concluded that citing a authoritative outside source is likely the most effective option.
“ILO body determines goods are made with forced labor, you show the measure, and your measure is ipso facto justified,” she said.
Closing out the panel, Isaac Okello Mbingi from the Central Organization of Trade Unions–Kenya, described how the new continent-wide African free trade agreement (African Continental Free Trade Area) covers a market of 1.2 million people in countries with a combined GDP of $3 trillion—yet does not include labor protocols to protect worker rights. The agreement will be difficult to modify, he said, but the process must start with educating unions and their members on how trade agreements impact worker rights.
As governments and employers move to address the effects of the climate crisis and toward a sustainable future, workers and their unions must be part of the discussions to ensure the creation of decent jobs and respect for workers’ fundamental rights, panelists said today in the opening plenary of the International Lawyers Assisting Workers Network (ILAW).
Bert De Wel, ITUC. Credit: Solidarity Center
Panelists in the Right to a Just Transition plenary sought to explore how workers can bargain with employers and governments over adaptation mitigation measures to transform economies in a way that “does not undermine worker rights but that does the opposite—builds a new economy that’s better than one we have today, one that incorporates all the social protections we have been fighting for,” said Jeffrey Vogt, Solidarity Center Rule of Law director and ILAW chair.
The term “just transition” signifies a process based on fairness, rights for workers and their communities, said Bert De Wel, an economist at the International Trade Union Confederation, which included it as part of global trade union demands in the ITUC New Social Contract.
More than 130 labor lawyers from 42 countries are meeting in Brussels October 7–9 for the second global conference of the International Lawyers Assisting Workers (ILAW) Network, where members set an ambitious agenda for advocacy, litigation and education.
The Solidarity Center launched the ILAW Network in December 2018 as a global hub for worker rights lawyers to facilitate innovative litigation, help spread the adoption of pro-worker legislation and defeat anti-worker laws.
The Climate Crisis: A Worker Rights Issue
“Trade unions have played a special role in adapting and transforming to a greener and more sustainable future,” said Clément Voule, special rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association for the United Nations. Voule cited the example of unions in the Philippines taking a key role in the transition to clean energy within a just transition framework.
“A sustainable future will only come true if states harness the power of civil society, including unions, to ensure those fighting for climate justice receive the respect they deserve, including peaceful freedom of assembly and association,” Voule said.
Claire LaHovary, ILO Actrav. Credit: Solidarity Center
The ITUC has incorporated the notion of just transition as part of its New Social Contract, said De Wel, while standards set by the International Labor Organization (ILO) offer worker rights lawyers a framework for moving to a just transition, said Claire LaHovary with ILO Bureau for Workers’ Activities (ACTRAV).
Two Solidarity Center staff offered grassroots view of the challenges ensuring worker voices are heard in sustainable transition discussions, including the need to educate workers about how the effects of the climate crisis on their livelihoods and health.
In Bangladesh, which has been identified as the seventh most vulnerable country to climate change, worker awareness of the issue is minimal, said AKM Nasim, Solidrity Center Bangledesh director.
“The Solidarity Center is trying to raise capacity of unions to negotiate agreements addressing climate change,” he said, but worker face strong resistance from employers on so many other workplaces issues their unions often are struggling to survive.
Carlos Gaurnizo at the Solidarity Center in Colombia, described the difficulties of shifting to a sustainable model from an extractive economy while ensuring worker rights. One key is to connect unions with the diverse groups affected by the climate crisis, he said.
“We have been working with communities and trade unions and work with all the international movements,” he said. It is also essential to consider cultural differences, including those of Indigenous communities that have a closer relationship with nature, he said. The recent election of a government that supports sustainable policies has opened new avenues for progress, he said.
“We need an ecological vision so we can understand we are only one small part of nature. We need to live together and co-exist harmoniously.”
Innovations in Arbitration
UNI Global Union General Secretary Christy Hoffman. Credit: Solidarity Center
At the second plenary panel, International Arbitration for Labor Rights, UNI Global Union General Secretary Christy Hoffman, Katerina Yiannibas at the Columbia University School of Law, discussed unique innovations in the arbitration process that better address the needs of workers and others seeking remedy.
Following the negotiation of the legally-binding Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Buiding Safety with fashion brand corporations to protect garment worker rights, UNI and IndustriALL moved to streamline the arbitration process to better serve workers, said Hoffman. The new framework reduces time to 180 days in part by combining arbitration and concilliation.
Yiannibas and worker rights attorney Lance Compa led the team of lawyers who created the model dispute resolution system, which was narrowed down from the Hague Rules on Business and Human Rights Arbitration that Yianniba spearheaded in 2019.
Databases of legislation, compilations of laws and successful practices that advance worker rights, trainings, and coordination with allied organizations are some of the suggestions members of the International Lawyers Assisting Workers Network (ILAW) recommended the organization pursue.
Madhulika Tatigotia. Credit: Solidarity Center
Meeting in breakout groups on the first day of the ILAW Network Global Conference, worker rights lawyers shared their work on, and requested support in, areas involving the global supply chain, informal economy work, employment discrimination, migrant worker rights, workplace safety and health and gender-based violence and harassment in the world of work.
“There is a need for more cooperation and sharing of litigation strategies and legal expert opinions across countries,” said Madhulika Tatigotla, a worker rights lawyer from India, who reported back to the afternoon plenary session on recommendations for improving worker rights in global supply chains.
She said ILAW members noted the need for a database of supply chain cases and a map of supply chains to better understand the networks. The group also proposed ILAW Network hold webinars on European Union due diligence laws and create a report on business and human rights litigation around supply chains modeled after ILAW’s 2021 report, “Taken for a Ride: Litigating the Digital Platform Model.”
More than 130 labor lawyers from 42 countries are meeting in Brussels October 7–9 for the second global conference of the International Lawyers Assisting Workers (ILAW) Network, where members set an ambitious agenda for advocacy, litigation and education.
The Solidarity Center launched the ILAW Network in December 2018 as a global hub for worker rights lawyers to facilitate innovative litigation, help spread the adoption of pro-worker legislation and defeat anti-worker laws.
Addressing Gender-Based Violence at Work
Furaha Joy Sekai Saungweme. Credit: Solidarity Center
“There are many grounds for discrimination and this provoked a very rich debate,” said Viviana Osoro Prez, Solidarity Center Equality and Inclusion Department director, who shared participants’ input from the employment discrimination breakout. “We looked into how important it is to create wider alliances between different movements, and for all legal assistance to be more connected with unions and society.” The group suggested ILAW Network create a repository of clauses from collective bargaining agreements on violence and harassment at work and trainings on discrimination in the workplace.
Gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) in the world of work also is being addressed through the International Labor Organization Convention 190, and ILAW members in the GBVH breakout discussed how they are working to incorporate its provisions in collective bargaining agreements and pushing for leave from work for those who have experienced domestic violence. Reporting back from the GBVH group, Furaha Joy Sekai Saungweme, a worker rights lawyer in Tanzania, noted a need for information sharing by countries that have ratified C190 and also on collective bargaining clauses and legal reform efforts addressing GBVH.
Coordination of Best Practices
Teresa Marchiori who, with J.J. Rosenbaum at GLJ-ILRF, led the breakout on the informal economy, reported the need for coordination of best practices in winning rights for informal economy workers, nearly none of whom are covered by labor laws in most countries. She noted an invitation from StreetNet International, a global network of workers in the informal economy, to join them in sharing legislative initiatives.
Michael Felsen. Credit: Solidarity Center
Migrant workers are 5 percent of the workforce but comprise 15 percent of workers in forced labor,” said Neha Misra, Solidarity Center Global Lead for Migration and Human Trafficking. Misra and Sarah Mehta from the Migrant Justice Institute reported back from the migrant worker breakout meeting where members suggested ILAW spearhead draft laws on labor migration and look at issues such as how best to ensure migrant workers have the same legal rights as all workers. Fundamentally, “they must have legal rights to form unions and collectively bargain to improve their working conditions,” Misra said.
Worker rights lawyers reported a wide range of health and safety issues, many occurring in new forms of work such as digital employment and telework, said worker rights attorney Michael Felsen. “One of the key takeaways is that we all want ILAW to assist in getting governments to do better law enforcement around safety and health, push goverments to protect workers through new and current legislation, research successful clauses in collective bargaining agreements on safety and health and push governments to enact and enforce safety and health legislation.
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“Many studies show that organized labor has played critical role in developing and defending democracy. The organized working class was the primary carrier of democracy,” Cornell said today at the International Lawyers Assisting Workers Network (
