Dec 8, 2023
For their courage and persistence in the face of escalating threats to their own lives, seven delegates representing the Philippine labor movement received the 2023 AFL-CIO George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award in a ceremony in Washington, D.C., this week. The award is given annually in recognition of dedication to and effectiveness in highlighting the widespread denial of fundamental human rights at work and in society.
“This award is in recognition of the Philippines labor movement’s resilience, persistence and courage in the face of extreme violence and repression,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler at the event.
More than 70 union members have been killed since 2016, and many more are victims of red-tagging (branding and accusing individuals and/or organizations of being terrorists), illegal firing of union activists and anti-terrorism laws directed at stifling freedom to form unions and bargain.
“The killings are precisely designed to sow fear among workers,” United and Progressive Workers Center (SENTRO) Secretary General Josua Mata told the Solidarity Center.
Persecution has not stopped despite recent changes to the government’s top leadership. Union leader Jude Thaddeus Fernandez, 67, was killed September 29 after a division of the Philippine National Police reportedly entered Fernandez’s home and shot him dead. The murder of Alex Dolorosa—whose role as a union organizer and a paralegal was funded by the Communications Workers of America (CWA)—in April remains uninvestigated like every other extrajudicial killing of a trade unionist in the country.
Workers who are organizing and conducting other union business in the Philippines seek only to build a decent society and life for their families, Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) Vice President Luis Corral told the Solidarity Center.
“We are not the enemy,” he said.
In addition to Corral and Mata, the delegation receiving the award for include Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Secretary General Raymond Basilio; Business Process Outsourcing Industry Employees Network (BIEN) President Mylene Cabalona; Public Services Labor Independent Confederation (PSLINK) President Annie Enriquez Geron; Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) Chairman Elmer Labog; and Federation of Free Workers (FFW) President Sonny Matula. The Solidarity Center has a 25-year partnership with the Philippine labor movement, including current support for an organizing campaign for low wage, app-based food delivery workers.
“This recognition fortifies our resolve and validates our efforts under the most challenging of circumstances,” said TUCP President and Philippine Congress House Deputy Speaker Raymond Mendoza when accepting the award, “on behalf of all workers in the Philippines, especially those who gave their lives for labor.”
Previous award recipients include United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association Maina Kiai and the Tunisian General Labor Union (Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail, UGTT), which also won a shared Nobel Peace Prize for its role in brokering Tunisia’s path to democracy during the Arab uprisings.
Jun 20, 2023
Recognizing that increased numbers help unions better advocate for worker rights and negotiate wages and working conditions with Kyrgyzstan’s employers and government, 28 union activists joined the Solidarity Center’s Organizing School, a four-part program that began in March. The school drew participants from construction, informal trading, public service, taxi and textile sectors, many of whom are already successfully putting their new skills into practice.
“By emphasizing practical skills, fostering authentic communication and providing ongoing support, this initiative is contributing to a stronger labor movement and empowered organizers who can bring about positive change in their workplaces and communities,” says Solidarity Center Program Officer Elena Rubtsova.
Early successes of the program include establishment of a union savings’ program, “Zymyryk-Invest,” by the union representing construction workers, which has already attracted dozens of new members, and expansion of the taxi drivers’ union, Kabylan, into Kyrgyzstan’s fourth largest city, Karakol, through use of a new, dedicated WhatsApp chat group. Although Kyrgyzstan’s labor law does not specifically protect the rights of workers on digital platforms, it allows self-employed taxi drivers to unite within pre-existing trade unions.
Between training sessions, organizing school participants practiced their new skills, including strategic communications, and benefited from group and Solidarity Center support.
“This training helped me understand that speaking from the heart and using our own words resonates more effectively with others,” says Kabylan President Ulan Cholponbaev.
Jun 15, 2023
A quarter century since joining the fight for worker rights in Mexico, the Solidarity Center celebrated the progress made amid reflections on the historic moment workers and their allies face in the country.
“The most important and promising independent union organizing in the world is happening right here, right now in Mexico,” Shawna Bader-Blau, Solidarity Center executive director, told those gathered in Mexico City for the anniversary celebration.
To mark the occasion, the Solidarity Center organized a week of activities to honor the work of partners from the independent Mexican trade union movement, strengthen transnational solidarity, examine the challenges that lie ahead and build a path toward a more just Mexico. From May 29 to June 1, trade union leaders and workers from across the country joined scholars and activists from Mexico and the United States, as well as representatives from both countries’ governments, to continue the collective work to ensure that recent labor law reforms and trade agreements put workers’ interests at the forefront.
After three years of historic change since the reforms, the emergence of a new generation of labor leaders demonstrates that Mexican workers hold it within themselves to build an inclusive and responsive labor movement. The Solidarity Center proudly recognized their achievements.
“It’s an honor to join together with so many brothers and sisters, with so many organizations that just a year ago did not exist and who are now working to strengthen freedom of association and collective bargaining in Mexico,” said Paolo Marinaro, Mexico country program director, speaking to allies as he introduced an international forum on the labor reforms held during the week.
Over its 25 years of work in Mexico, the Solidarity Center has supported grassroots organizing and lifted authentic worker voices to help dismantle a system that for too long ignored the plight of workers and catered to the interests of the rich and powerful. Today, more so than any time in the country’s history, the Mexican labor movement represents the full spectrum of Mexican workers. Over the course of the week, the diversity of Mexico’s new labor leaders did not go unnoticed.
“The Solidarity Center is honored to work with young workers, women-led unions, emerging and established democratic leadership, organizations formed by migrant and indigenous workers, and others who are revitalizing the Mexican labor movement and inspiring the global labor movement,” Bader-Blau said.
Mexico’s new and more representative labor unions have won path-breaking victories that have inspired a new wave of labor organizing in the country. With Solidarity Center support, in just the last year over 20,000 Mexican workers have negotiated strong contracts with historic wage increases and workplace protections. From St. Gobain workers in Cuautla, Morelos, to 3M workers in San Luis Potosí, the new independent labor movement continues to bring tangible benefits to a workforce long held in check through collusion between employers, the government and corrupt unions.
Despite these important victories, the promise of the labor reforms has not been fully realized. For that reason, the Solidarity Center begins its 26th year in Mexico committed to helping Mexican workers build the power necessary to create a more just economy and a more prosperous country.
May 26, 2023
A milestone convening in Tashkent last week brought together stakeholders from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan government ministries and agencies, non-governmental and civil society sectors, and international organizations as a first step in developing a joint action plan to combat forced labor and advance worker rights in the region. Worldwide, 28 million people were reportedly trapped in forced labor in 2021.
The May 22 conference highlighted labor inspectorates’ role in protecting worker rights and combating forced labor in the region. Solidarity Center supported the event, which was organized in collaboration with “Partnership in Action,” an international NGO network of more than 30 Central Asian organizations, Kyrgyzstan’s Migrant Workers Union’s partner organization “Insan-Leylek” and Uzbekistan’s Istiqbolli Avlod.
“There is a crucial need for regional cooperation in labor inspections, because migration patterns are constantly changing,” says “Insan-Leylek” leader Gulnara Derbisheva.
Recognizing the importance of collective action, the conference hosts provided a forum for representatives of labor inspectorates from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to share their expertise and experiences within their respective countries. Government representatives from each of those countries reiterated their commitment to labor inspectorates working cooperatively with one another and with the region’s worker rights defenders to fight labor exploitation and promote safer working environments and dignified work for all.
Topics included international standards related to the work of inspectorates, issues surrounding forced labor in Central Asia and the importance of labor inspections given the region’s unique challenges. Participants identified a severe shortage of labor inspectors—Solidarity Center research finds that 250 labor inspectors oversee 280,000 legal entities employing 6.5 million people in Kazakhstan, 30 inspectors oversee thousands of enterprises in Kyrgyzstan and 315 inspectors oversee 578,000 registered entities in Uzbekistan—and discussed restrictions on inspectorates’ effectiveness. Although the International Labor Organization (ILO) standards specify that inspections be conducted without prior notification, all three countries require prior consent and advance notice for inspections and exclude small businesses from inspection mandates. Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are currently considering legislative changes to rectify such loopholes.
“The outcomes of the conference have the potential to transform labor protection, ensuring safer and fairer working conditions for everyone in the region,” says Solidarity Center Europe and Central Asia Regional Program Director Rudy Porter.
According to ILO data, some 2.3 million women and men around the world succumb to work-related accidents or diseases every year, including 340 million victims of occupational accidents and 160 million victims of work-related illnesses. The ILO reports 11,0000 fatal occupational accidents annually in the 12-member states comprising the Commonwealth of Independent States—Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan—but points to “gross underreporting” of occupational accidents and diseases in the region.
May 2, 2023
Following a 136-day strike, Montenegro’s telecom workers are celebrating a collective agreement that reverses a 14-year wage freeze and interrupts more than a decade of alleged union-busting tactics by Crnogorski Telekom (CT), majority owned by Deutsche Telecom since 2005.
The agreement won by the Trade Union of Telecom of Montenegro (STCG) immediately increases workers’ wages by 15 percent and provides an additional 5 percent total wage increase through 2025. Workers also negotiated improved benefits, job cut limits and, for the first time, severance pay.
“The company could not claim any more that the wage increase was inadmissible, given that every year it distributed dividends to shareholders and paid bonuses to already highly paid managers,” says Burić. “Since 2008, their profit has exceeded half a billion euros,” he says.
CT last gave workers a pay raise in 2008, even though consumer prices in Montenegro increased more than 45 percent from 2006 through 2021, and workers have been carrying an increased workload. The company slashed jobs by almost two-thirds since Deutsche Telecom took majority ownership, says STCG.
During its ongoing wage battle with the union, CT violated the country’s labor law by threatening to abolish the union’s collective agreement and refusing to negotiate with workers’ democratically elected leaders, say unions.
The agreement was won in spite of CT’s effort to violate numerous fundamental labor rights in the most egregious way,” says STCG President Željko Burić.
Solidarity support for STCG’s campaign was provided in Montenegro by the Union of Free Trade Unions of Montenegro (UFTUM) and its affiliates. Other union and worker rights organizations supporting the campaign included the Albanian Telecommunications Union SPPTSH, Alliance One Telekom Union (OTU), the Croatian Telecommunications Union HST, the cooperation project of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) under the European Commission with regional network Solidarnost, the Transport and Telecommunications Union of Serbia GS SITEL Nezavisnost, Germany’s Ver.di, ETUC, the Solidarity Center, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and UNI Global Union. STCG is an ITUC member and founding UFTUM member.
Apr 5, 2023
Dozens of union leaders from across Africa took part in the first-ever Summit for Democracy event on the continent March 30, where they discussed the essential role of unions in strengthening democracy and shared strategies on how unions can step up efforts to advance democracy through one of its most essential components—worker rights. Co-hosted by the Multilateral Partnership for Organizing, Worker Empowerment and Rights (M-POWER) and the Zambian Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), the day-long conference included interactive sessions focused on strengthening democracy and opening rapidly closing civic space in Africa.
“Amplifying the Voices of Workers to Safeguard Democracy in Africa” was an official side event of the second Summit for Democracy, a global democracy initiative co-hosted by Costa Rica, the Netherlands, South Korea, the United States and Zambia March 28–30, 2023. The second Summit showcased progress made by Summit partners on their commitments in the first year of the global initiative—M-POWER is one of the largest commitments made by Summit partners.
Said Joy Beene, secretary general of the Zambia Confederation of Trade Unions: “There’s no democracy without workers.”
See conference highlights in this photo essay.
