Sep 26, 2024
In Cambodia, workers health and safety and climate change are linked. This report details the results of surveys, interviews, and thermal monitoring conducted in the garment, delivery, and informal food sector that display the negative effect that heat has on workers, and give insight on how unions are an effective solution for positive change. “Workers whose union negotiates with their employers over heat mitigation experienced 75% less working time under stress.”
Read the full report here.
Sep 24, 2024
Nearly two dozen participants from three countries joined in a recent leadership seminar in Issyk Kul, Kyrgyzstan, to discuss strategies for labor relations in inspectorates, unions and NGOs to fight labor corruption.
The seminar provided a deep understanding of basic labor rights and enabled participants to apply valuable lessons. Credit: Solidarity Center
“I didn’t know that this was such a relevant topic,” said Eshmurodova Sevara, a participant from Uzbekistan. “Corruption exists in our everyday life. As a student, I would like less of it in my life.”
The seminar provided a deep understanding of fundamental labor rights and also enabled participants to apply valuable lessons by utilizing effective tools to combat such corruption in labor as misappropriated funds, or personal gain at the expense of workers.
The regional seminar, part of a Solidarity Center school that facilitator Mukha Kazakhstan described as “very high,” builds on the success of the Annual School of Young Leaders in Kyrgyzstan, a country-wide program launched in 2019. The first Regional Youth School involved civil society and union members and leaders from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
Combining practical learning, including simulation exercises and gamification, the hands-on activities enabled participants to better understand the role of key institutions in addressing corruption in labor relations. (A video captures some of interactivity.)
Aliya Narbai, a participant from Kazakhstan, said he not only gained valuable insights, but practical tools he can apply. “After returning to Kazakhstan, I plan to initiate a campaign to raise public awareness about labor rights and corruption,” he said.
Equipped to Go Forward
“The school showed us how similar our challenges are. Now, we understand that we must act together, combining our efforts,” said Umar Zhaliev, a representative of the Federation of Trade Unions of Kyrgyzstan.
The program’s primary goal—to equip young leaders with the knowledge and tools to take action—developed through sessions in which participants created action plans to implement after returning to their countries. Through an emerging youth activist network, participants can develop mutual support and collaboration to advance labor rights and combat corruption throughout the region.
“Organizing the youth school on labor rights was vital because it empowered young people with essential knowledge and fostered community engagement,” says Solidarity Center country program director Lola Abdukadyrova. “By equipping them with this knowledge, we’re nurturing informed advocates who can effectively engage in labor rights discussions and drive positive change in their communities.”
As Sevara said, when I return “to my home city, I will try to study it even more deeply in order to eradicate it, at least in small parts.”
Sep 19, 2024
In a precedent-setting case before the International Court of Justice, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) provided written comments last week in a legal dispute over the right to strike.
The dispute, filed in 2023, is the first submitted by the United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO) to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). It arises from the refusal, in 2012, of the ILO Employers Group to recognize that the right to strike is protected by ILO Convention 87, as the ILO supervisory system has recognized since the 1950s.
On September 13, 2024, the ITUC filed its written comments. Oral arguments are expected to begin in the coming months. The ICJ’s advisory opinion is expected in 2025.
“This case is consequential, as the protection of the right to strike is essential not only for workplace democracy, but for democracy as a whole,” says Jeffrey Vogt, Solidarity Center rule of law director, co-author of the book The Right to Strike in International Law and member of the ITUC’s legal team. “The right of workers to withdraw their labor is so fundamentally intrinsic to the exercise of freedom of association and the right to organize that, without it, their very survival and the protection of their dignity as workers is at stake. We hope that the ICJ will agree with our reasoning as contained in our brief and affirm that the right to strike is protected under international law, including ILO Convention No. 87.”
The filing was made on behalf of ITUC General Secretary Luc Triangle and Paapa Kwasi Danquah, ITUC director of legal and human and trade union rights, and supported by members of the ITUC legal team, including Vogt, Catelene Passchier, workers vice-chair of the ILO Governing Body, and Monica Tepfer, an ITUC lawyer.
Sep 18, 2024
In a significant win for migrant worker rights organizations and the people they represent, Kyrgyzstan President Sadyr Japarov issued an August 28 decree that the republic join the UN’s Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Legal Migration (GCM). The decree demonstrates that, with the goal of improving conditions for Kyrgyz citizens who travel abroad to earn their livelihoods, Kyrgyzstan is recognizing the importance of aligning with global trends in migration governance and taking an important step toward harmonizing national legislation with international standards.
The decree follows years of work by the Solidarity Center with its partners in Central Asia, including, in Kyrgyzstan, with the Migrant Workers Union, a network of nongovernmental organizations focused on migration, and the relevant Kyrgyzstan state bodies. Collaborative actions have included gathering and reporting data on harsh conditions for migrant workers, educating migrating and returning workers about their rights, and advocating for effectively enforced protective legislation and policies.
“We celebrate the hard work of our regional partners in Central Asia, who are working in coalition to support Kyrgyzstan’s successful participation in the GCM,” says Neha Misra, Solidarity Center migration and forced labor global lead. “For too long, Central Asian migrant workers and the labor organizations that represent them have been excluded from important policy discussions within UN systems and regionally.”
The UN’s 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration sets out a cooperative framework for member states to achieve safe, orderly and regular migration within a rights-based framework, and includes a process for implementation and review. With Solidarity Center support, Kyrgyzstan unofficially contributed to the review process at the UN’s first International Migration Forum (IMRF) in 2022, in part through participation of Derbisheva Gulnara, director of Kyrgyzstan migrant rights nongovernmental organization Insan-Leilek Public Foundation, and Shamshiev Ulan, vice-chairman of the Council for Migration, Compatriots and Diasporas Abroad, under the Speaker of the Parliament of the Kyrgyz Republic.
Millions of citizens of Central Asian countries have migrated abroad in search of jobs to sustain themselves and their families. Most of them, including those from Kyrgyzstan, were un- or underemployed workers who have traveled to take up low-wage, precarious jobs such as domestic workers, drivers or laborers in informal arrangements with their employers. Migrant worker remittances—money sent home to support family members—account for more than 30 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s gross domestic product (GDP). Kyrgyzstan’s citizens are headed primarily to Kazakhstan or Russia, as well as further to Hungary, South Korea, Turkey or other countries. Many Central Asian migrant workers report facing discrimination, exploitation and unsafe working conditions and are at risk of being trafficked and subjected to forced labor.
The Solidarity Center has supported migrant worker rights in the Central Asia region for almost a decade, providing educational workshops and helping to organize migrant worker rights fora. Two regional fora, in 2023 and 2024, focused attention on the plight of migrant workers in Central Asia, including in Kyrgyzstan. Outcomes of the fora included coalition building, with the creation of a cross-regional group of state authorities and nongovernmental organizations that collaborate on solutions, such as countries joining or otherwise participating in the GCM. With its Kyrgyzstan partners, the Solidarity Center last year submitted a voluntary regional report to the GCM that outlines challenges to state compliance with principles such as international cooperation, human rights, the engagement of relevant government institutions and the rule of law, and proposed that Kyrgyzstan join the GCM to help meet those challenges.
A Solidarity Center-supported survey of hundreds of Kyrgyz women migrant workers across 19 Russian cities in 2021 documented brutal conditions on the job, including sexual violence. In Russia—where an estimated 750,000 Kyrgyz people have migrated for work, half of them women—workers have reported rising racism, working without official contracts or having their wages stolen, and having few opportunities to stand up for their rights or hold their employers accountable.
“Kyrgyzstan’s participation in the GCM is an important first step in garnering more recognition for the labor rights of Central Asian migrant workers,” says Solidarity Center Central Asia Country Program Director Lola Abdukadyrova in Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital.
The Solidarity Center strives for worker rights for people on the move by ensuring migrant worker rights are a key part of the labor movement. Almost 170 million people are international migrant workers, comprising almost 5 percent of the global labor force. To promote respect for the rights of migrant workers and refugees of any category, the Solidarity Center partners with unions and worker rights organizations to extend workplace protections to all workers, and works in consultation with the UN and partners around the world—including in Kyrgyzstan and other Central Asian countries. In coalition, the Solidarity Center focuses on creating safe migration processes for workers, including greater regulation of labor recruiters and the elimination of recruitment fees to prevent debt bondage, and the eradication of forced labor from global supply chains. And the Solidarity Center supports the creation of networks among partners in origin and destination countries to ensure that migrant workers are protected along their journey.
Sep 16, 2024
The Solidarity Center welcomes the release of Cambodia’s Sithar Chhim, president of the Labor Rights Supported Union of Khmer Employees of NagaWorld (LRSU), who in 2022 was jailed for exercising her human right to peacefully assemble and freely associate and subsequently sentenced to two years in prison for “incitement to commit a felony”– a common charge against Cambodian rights activists.
“We are grateful that sister Sithar Chhim has been released and laud LRSU leaders and activists for their commitment and courage in continuing to fight for their rights,” says Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau.
Chhim was jailed with seven union colleagues for peacefully walking a picket line at Phnom Penh NagaWorld Hotel and Casino in 2022 and sentenced the following year to two years in prison for “incitement.” In years prior, the union’s successful organizing and activism had won substantial wage increases for thousands of NagaWorld employees.
The arrests and later convictions prompted global condemnation, including from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN Human Rights Office and inspired a global union campaign for the release of LRSU leaders and for their charges to be expunged by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF) and other unions worldwide.
The 2024 ITUC Global Rights Index rates Cambodia as one of the worst countries to work in, where workers have “no guarantee of rights.”
Sep 16, 2024
The Solidarity Center condemns the brutal murder of well-known land and human rights defender Juan Ló Pesca in Honduras, and calls for a transparent investigation into the crime and punishment of those who played any role in his untimely death.
López, a member of the Honduran Network Against Anti-Union Violence (RedContraVA) Aguan sub-network, was shot September 14, 2024, after leaving Mass by several gunmen. Prior to his murder, he had received numerous threats and was under protective measures ordered by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. At the time of his death, he was working to prevent destructive mining projects in the Montaña Botaderos National Park. And his assassination came one day after calling for the resignation of the mayor of Tocoa, where López served as a city councilor, to resign.
Honduras is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for rights activists.
“Juan López paid a terrible price for his dedication to standing with unionists and environmental, land rights and other human rights defenders facing threats for their activism. His murder cannot go unpunished,” said Shawna Bader-Blau, Solidarity Center executive director. “As we honor his legacy, we stand in solidarity with RedContraVa , the Committee of Popular Organizations of Aguan and other groups from around the world calling for justice for Juan and an end to threats to land and rights defenders in Honduras.”
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DECLARACIÓN: Los asesinos del activista Hondureño de derechos territoriales y humanos, Juan López, deben ser llevados ante la justicia
El Centro de Solidaridad condena el brutal asesinato del conocido defensor de los derechos ambientales y humanos Juan López en Honduras, y urge una investigación transparente sobre el crimen y la judicializacion de quienes desempeñaron algún papel en su prematura muerte.
López, miembro de la Red Contra la Violencia Antisindical de Honduras (RedContraVA), subred Aguán, fue baleado el 14 de septiembre de 2024, después de salir de la misa, por hombres armados. Antes de su asesinato, había recibido numerosas amenazas y se encontraba bajo medidas de protección ordenadas por la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos. En el momento de su muerte, luchaba para prevenir megaproyectos mineros destructivos en el Parque Nacional Montaña Botaderos. Juan López era regidor municipal de Tocoa y fue asesinado un día después de haber pedido que el alcalde actual de Tocoa renunciara.
Honduras es uno de los países más peligrosos del mundo para los activistas de derechos humanos.
“Juan López pagó un precio terrible por su dedicación a apoyar a los sindicalistas y defensores del medio ambiente, de los derechos a la tierra y otros derechos humanos que enfrentan amenazas por su activismo. Su asesinato no puede quedar impune”, dijo Shawna Bader-Blau, directora ejecutiva del Centro de Solidaridad. “Al honrar su legado, nos solidarizamos con la RedContraVA, el Comité de Organizaciones Populares del Aguán y movimientos sociales de todo el mundo que piden justicia para Juan y el fin de las amenazas a los defensores de la tierra y los derechos humanos en Honduras”.
