Haitian garment workers scored a huge victory as a coalition of unions negotiated an agreement with the government to provide garment workers in Port-Au-Prince with transportation and food stipends.
“In our struggle for a better working environment and fair wages we have always emphasized that the government should provide social support to workers, especially those in the textile sector. And here it is for the first time that our demands have been heard, even if it is not yet in effect, but the government has planned to accompany the workers by offering them transportation and food costs for an amount of 135,000,000 gourdes ($1,116,595),” said Telemarque Pierre, coordinator of SOTA- Batay Ouvriye.
“From now on, we would like the government to take care to include these accompaniments in the annual budgets so that the workers can always benefit from these advantages.”
The government will distribute the funds via a mobile app. The stipend will cover the cost of travel to and from the factory, and include a lunch stipend. Inflation and gang violence have led to skyrocketing prices for food and fuel such that workers cannot afford travel to and from work or food at lunchtime.
The agreement underscores the importance and effectiveness of unions in improving the lives of workers.
“We can say now that every time there is a problem, the workers come to the union because they always find that the unions are a real help,” said Eliacin Wilner, GOSTTRA organizer.
Unions are working to ensure that workers are aware of the program and able to access their benefits.
The agreement is the result of minimum wage protests by garment workers in January 2022. Fueled by frustration over three years without a minimum wage increase and the rising cost of basic necessities and services, workers at the SONAPI industrial park in Port-Au-Prince held a spontaneous protest to call for a wage increase.
The protests led to negotiations between the government and a coalition of nine textile unions. The coalition’s advocacy resulted in an increase of the minimum wage from 500 gourdes ($4.82) per day to 685 gourdes ($5.85) per day.
Solidarity Center studies repeatedly have demonstrated the daily minimum wage is far less than the estimated cost of living in Haiti. Significant job losses due to supply chain disruptions have left most garment workers facing diminished working hours or layoffs, threatening their ability to provide for their families. These periods of income precarity are especially dire given that most low-wage garment workers lack savings.
Even as war rages in Ukraine, with daily bombings, food and medicine shortages and tens of thousands of displaced people crowded in cramped public spaces, the Ukrainian Parliament recently passed a series of laws that attack workers’ basic rights on the job and undermine the ability of unions to freely function.
“Instead of having some greater protection of labor rights, greater protection of the people who are baking bread, washing dishes or cleaning the streets, since March we faced very regressive labor reform in Ukraine,” says George Sandul, a Kyiv-based labor lawyer, on the latest episode of The Solidarity Center Podcast.
Sandul outlined a series of laws parliament recently pushed through as martial law limited the ability of union members to strike or protest the changes, and as many unions and their members are focused on providing humanitarian assistance.
‘Unions in Ukraine have literally invested everything to support their country—union offices and labor halls have become shelters and refugee support centers. In some cases, unions have even donated all their money,” says Solidarity Center Executive Director and Podcast Host Shawna Bader-Blau.
“And in return for their heroism, sacrifice and commitment to country, big business and their allies in parliament want to slash workers’ collective rights to bargain for better wages.”
Despite often heroic efforts to deliver food under war conditions, Bolt delivery drivers in Kyiv, Ukraine, have seen a 60 percent cut in wages—and they are demanding the company take immediate action to boost wages and provide vehicle maintenance support.
Prohibited from striking while Ukraine is under martial law, the delivery drivers gathered recently at Bolt’s office in Kyiv to present the company with their demands, which include an increase in minimum payments from 84 cents per order to $1.36 per order, and a boost in per-kilometer pay from 24 cents to 41 cents to compensate for the rise in inflation.
“Our wages have been cut to the minimum,” a driver stated at the gathering. “Now they are trying to force us to work for pennies. It is almost impossible to feed one person on such a wage.”
Another driver said he must “work 14 hours a day, 27 days a month” to survive.
The app-based workers also are urging the company to provide free or low-cost repair and maintenance for their vehicles, most of which are bicycles and motorbikes.
“Bolt Food does not compensate our work expenses in any way,” a driver said. “We bear the risks ourselves. We have to maintain transport at our own expense, we have to pay for fuel, spare parts—and all prices just skyrocketed but our wages were further reduced. These costs reach 70 to 75 percent of income at current prices.”
In addition, workers want Bolt to re-open several app features, such as one that enables drivers to see the client’s address before they accept the job. If the restaurant where they pick up the food is only a few blocks from the client, they only are paid for the short distance from the restaurant to the client’s location, even if they drive miles to get to the restaurant.
Earlier this year, Bolt Food riders in Lviv raised similar demands with the company after Bolt cut wages so drastically workers could not afford gas for their vehicles. Many Ukrainians relocated during the war to Lviv, a relatively safe haven near Poland’s border, and delivery drivers say Bolt took advantage of their plight as they desperately sought jobs to support their families. The delivery drivers won a wage increase July 5 that includes a boost in the amount drivers receive when delivering food during peak times, weekends, late hours and in bad weather, a feature Kyiv delivery drivers also are seeking.
Massive Job Loss and Attacks on Worker Rights
The company’s cutback in wages comes as more than one-third of jobs in Ukraine have been lost since the beginning of the war in February, according to an International Labor Organization report in May. The ILO projected job losses to reach 7 million, or 43.5 percent of the workforce, if the war continues.
Even as the war has decimated jobs and the economy, Ukraine’s parliament passed a law that would significantly erode employees’ rights in areas covering working hours, working conditions, dismissal and compensation after dismissal. The law makes it legal to fire employees who are on sick leave or vacation and allows employers to increase the work week from 40 hours to 60 hours, shorten holidays and cancel additional vacation days. A union’s rights also would be severely curtailed and employers would have the right to unilaterally cancel collective bargaining agreements.
Lawmakers say the legislation would apply only during war. But George Sandul, a lawyer with the Ukrainian worker rights organization Labor Initiatives, says unions and legal experts fear the law will not be revoked.
The legislation did not stem from the war. Similar proposals were pushed months before Russia invaded Ukraine, with the parliamentary committee for social policies and the Ministry of Economy pressing to radically change labor law to favor employers and restrict union rights.
The trafficking of agriculture workers, including children, is widespread globally, and “practices of exceptionalism” limit workers’ rights to freedom of association, organizing and collective bargaining, according to a new report on trafficking in persons in agriculture from United Nations Special Rapporteur Siobhán Mullally.
“Characterized by high levels of informality, lack of oversight and protection, trafficking in persons remains a serious concern within the agricultural sector, affecting both adults and children,” she writes.
The report notes that while the COVID-19 pandemic saw agricultural workers designated as “essential,” worker protections did not follow. Indeed, temporary, seasonal and migrant workers are provided limited legal coverage, and restrictive migration policies persist despite the demand for agricultural workers.
Findings include:
Discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnicity, migration status, gender and disability creates conditions within which trafficking occurs with impunity.
Land inequality, particularly affecting women and girls, drives exploitation, including trafficking for forced labor.
The agriculture sector employs an estimated 28 percent of the total global labor force and an estimated 60 percent of the labor force in low-income countries. Because it is characterized by high levels of informal and seasonal employment, the risks of exploitation are also high.
Discrimination based on migration status leaves workers vulnerable to trafficking.
Gender inequality in land ownership and tenure contributes to poverty, dependency and risks of violence, including trafficking of women and girls. Women are estimated to make up 20 percent of the world’s landholders but account for 43 percent of agricultural workers.
Indigenous women and girls may experience increased risks of trafficking due to the intersection of discrimination and violence, based on gender, race, ethnicity, indigenous origin and poverty.
People with disabilities may be particularly at risk of trafficking in agricultural work, where there is limited oversight and monitoring of worker rights.
Agriculture is the entry point for child labor, accounting for 76.6 percent in child laborers ages 5-11 and 75.8 percent in children ages 12-14. Children who travel with parents migrating for work often miss out on their education, as well.
The Special Rapporteur also highlighted that recruitment practices for the sector–particularly of seasonal, temporary and migrant workers–increase risks of trafficking for forced labor. Recruitment processes and substantial recruitment and other fees often lead to debt bondage.
Meanwhile, “intensive agriculture and agribusinesses contribute negatively to climate change, reflecting the wider nexus between trafficking in persons, environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity and the climate crisis,” she writes.
The protection of all workers and their families “is essential to prevent trafficking,” she says, urging governments to, among other urgent actions: “Strengthen the capacity of trade unions, civil society organizations and human rights defenders to support agricultural workers, including through effective protection of rights to freedom of association and peaceful assembly and to collective organizing and collective bargaining, without discrimination.”
The Special Rapporteur’s report was bolstered by a submission from the Solidarity Center related to the conditions for migrant workers in Jordan’s agriculture sector. The submission noted:
Migrant workers work very long hours in hazardous conditions that lack occupational, safety and health (OSH) standards, medical care and overtime compensation. Forced overtime is an indicator of forced labor under ILO standards. The agricultural sector in general is an informal economy sector, and the work is usually temporary or seasonal. Agricultural areas are isolated and far from service centers; therefore, agricultural workers who suffer from labor and human rights violations do not have access to justice. Forced labor and wage theft are common violations, although usually not reported because of limited access to justice, absence of labor inspection and fears of retaliation and other threats workers face, especially undocumented or irregular workers. Because these workers were not recognized as workers under Jordanian labor law until May 2021, they lacked access to labor courts and were forced to file complaints through civil courts, which do not exempt court fees, making this an inaccessible complaint process for agricultural workers.
The kafala system requires migrant workers to be fully reliant on their employers for legal status. In the case that an employer does not renew a work permit, the worker is punished with deportation and a ban from returning to Jordan for three years. Workers are often deported without receiving their owed wages and other compensation–a form of wage theft, which is also an ILO indicator of forced labor. In cases where agricultural workers leave a workplace to escape harassment, rights violations and forced labor without reporting such violations, they are subject to an overstay fine, which is 1.5 Jordanian dinars per day (approximately $2) and they are subject to detention and false or retaliatory theft accusations by their employers, essentially becoming undocumented workers. Migrant workers rarely if ever report violations, fearing employer harassment or retaliation. Undocumented workers are victims of exploitation by brokers and fixers who charge excessive fees for work permits. A Syrian woman worker said, “Syrian agricultural workers’ wages are the lowest not because they accept to work for low wages but because the shaweesh (the middleman) takes a percentage of their wages.”
The Special Rapporteur’s report cited these examples and supported the Solidarity Center’s conclusion in its submission: “Trade unions are important to combat forced labor and other forms of labor trafficking and exploitation, and to raise workers’ awareness about their rights and the available services and access to justice channels.
“The explicit exclusion of both migrant workers and workers in the agricultural sector is a violation of these workers’ fundamental right to freedom of association under the Constitution of Jordan and international human and labor rights as enshrined in the ICCPR, ICESCR and ILO Conventions 87 and 98. The right to freedom of association is fundamental in a workers’ ability to advocate for her/his own rights, protect themselves from forced labor, and ensure protections from GBVH, and other occupational hazards.”
A significant number of migrant workers worldwide are not paid for work performed, and legal remedies to recover them are few. But new policies have proven effective in ensuring migrant workers are treated fairly, a global panel of experts said yesterday.
“Paying workers their wages in full and on time is the basic bargain in employment relationships—when someone works, they do so in exchange for payment from an employer. Yet, for many of the 169 million migrant workers around the world this is not their experience,” said Neha Misra, Solidarity Center global lead on migration and human trafficking. “This is not a simple issue of wage arrears, like a clerical error. This is THEFT.”
Misra co-moderated Innovative Strategies for Improving Migrant Workers Access to Justice for Wage Theft, a panel bringing together migrant worker advocates from Australia, Canada, Colombia and the United States to share promising practices championed by labor and migrant worker rights advocates and adopted by governments and employers. Jeff Vogt, director of the International Lawyers Assisting Workers (ILAW) Network, was co-moderator.
“We need to educate and motivate governments to take action to remedy wage theft, including in supply chains,” said Laurie Berg, co-executive director of the Migrant Justice Institute which, along with Solidarity Center and ILAW, a Solidarity Center project, sponsored the event.
Freedom to Form Unions Key to Ending Wage Theft
Few migrant workers are covered by labor laws, and an overarching solution to the scourge of wage theft is for governments to provide migrant workers access to these fundamental protections—and that includes the ability to freely form unions, an internationally recognized right that most governments refuse to extend to migrant workers.
Speaking on the panel, Bassina Farbenblum, Migrant Justice Institute co-executive director, ourlined additional concrete measures to address wage theft, drawing on examples undertaken in cities and countries around the world. These include shifting the burden of proof to employers in wage claims—such as requiring the employer to demonstrate it paid the worker correctly—to establishing financial repercussions for employers who withhold wages or ignore judgments favorable to workers. Migrant workers often fear deportation or other forms of employer retaliation if they file wage claims, said Farbenblum. Solutions include allowing migrant workers to change employers without losing their visa, and allowing them to file claims after they leave their job — by permitting temporary stay in the country to pursue wage claims or enabling them to file claims from their origin country.
Berg and Farbenblum detail these and more options in Migrant Workers’ Access to Justice for Wage Theft: A Global Study of Promising Initiatives, a 2021 study undertaken in partnership with Solidarity Center and ILAW. The report supports a new initiative coordinated in part by the Solidarity Center, the Migrant Worker Access to Justice for Wage Theft campaign, a global coalition working to provide remedy and accountability for wage theft.
The project launches a new phase in September, with the formation of a community of practice that will develop policy guides on reform targets to enable advocates to push for law and policy reform, said Berg. The guide will set out a variety of models and examples where reform has been implemented.
Canada, Colombia Examples to End Wage Theft
Panelists Amanda Aziz, a lawyer at the Migrant Workers Center in Canada, and Angélica Palacios Martínez at the Solidarity Center in Colombia, detailed specific initiatives in their countries to end wage theft.
In Canada, where migrant workers’ work visas are tied to specific employers in temporary migration schemes, rights advocates campaigned to establish an open work permit program in 2019 that applies to vulnerable workers with valid permits. The ability to move freely to another job allows them to escape abusive work situations, said Aziz. Similar systems in which migrant worker visas are valid only for one employer, such as the kafala sponsorship system in Arabian Gulf countries that ties migrant workers to their employers and guestworker programs in the United States that do the same, effectively deny migrant workers fundamental rights and fuels abuse like wage theft.
Martínez described how the recent influx of Venezuelan migrant workers to Colombia makes it easy for employers to exploit a vulnerable workforce. Many seek jobs through platform delivery companies such as Rappi, which effectively tells workers if they do not like conditions, they can leave because other workers will take their jobs, she said. While Colombian workers in the formal sector work up to 48 hours a week, migrant workers must work far more because they are paid so little, she said.
The workers formed a union, UNIDAPP, and took their demands for decent work to the labor minister. They also won a court decision that forced Rappi to pay wages they owed workers.
“We’re looking for equality of the treatment of all workers in the country,” Martínez said.
Also speaking on the panel, Ruth Silver-Taube at the Santa Clara University School of Law described how advocacy efforts of a wage theft coalition won a series of victories that included barring governments in Santa Clara County, San Jose, and other nearby cities from contracting with employers who have outstanding wage theft judgments.
Demanding the ratification of International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 189, Decent Work for Domestic Workers, leaders and members of the National Domestic Women Workers Union (NDWWU) on June 16, 2022, rallied in front of the National Press Club in Bangladesh to mark International Domestic Workers Day.
They also demanded the ratification of International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention on violence and harassment in the world of work (ILO C190). A Bangladesh Institute of Labor Studies (BILS) report says 12 domestic workers were raped in 2020.
Although Bangladesh presided over the 100th session of the International Labor Conference and voted for ILO C189, the country’s domestic workers still are not protected by the global treaty because the government has yet to ratify it.
When Sitara Begum, 60, approached law enforcement after being harassed at her job as a domestic worker they did not assist her, and she was forced to flee from her employer. “In 22 years of working as a house help, I had to endure many such incidents. When does our agony stop?” she asks.
Domestic worker Rehana Akter Mita, 37, her family’s only breadwinner, earns $96.59 per month, which does not cover living expenses. Mita often takes loans from relatives to support her son’s education and husband’s medical costs.
The 2006 Bangladesh Labor Act does not recognize domestic worker rights. Domestic workers and their unions are urging the government to ratify ILO C189, a global treaty ensuring domestic workers their rights on the job.
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The app-based workers also are urging the company to provide free or low-cost repair and maintenance for their vehicles, most of which are bicycles and motorbikes.
Few migrant workers are covered by labor laws, and an overarching solution to the scourge of wage theft is for governments to provide migrant workers access to these fundamental protections—and that includes the ability to freely form unions, an internationally recognized right that most governments refuse to extend to migrant workers.
