Media Highlights

An astounding 80,000 Zimbabwe workers in formal employment–out of some 350,000 workers–did not receive wages and benefits on time in 2014, according to a new Solidarity Center report, ‘Working Without Pay: Wage Theft in Zimbabwe,’ released today in Harare.

Human rights lawyer Preeda Tongchumnum also lauded Thai government’s effort in tackling human trafficking but said more could be done, including ratifying the United Nations International Labor Organization convention. “Without these rights, migrant workers especially in Thailand’s biggest export industries remain vulnerable,” said Tongchumnum from the Solidarity Center office in Thailand.

“A credible and successful governance system would ensure that ALL workers (including migrant and informal economy workers) are covered by labor and other legal protections,” said Neha Misra, Solidarity Center Senior Specialist on Migration and Human Trafficking.

Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau was one of four representatives of the human and worker rights community at a meeting called by U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) with members of the Administration and advocacy groups to press for strong enforcement of the senators’ amendment to end the importation of products produced with forced labor into the United States. 

In the effort to end child labor and other abuses in supply chains, voluntary, unenforceable corporate codes of conduct are not the answer, write’s Solidarity Center Senior Asia Program Officer Sonia Mistry. “The only truly sustainable and meaningful alternatives to voluntary codes of conduct are binding and enforceable standards that employers and governments must abide by and which uphold the labor standards enshrined in the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) conventions, like the prohibition on child labor and the right of workers to form or join unions.”

As part of this project we held a focus group with ten Bangladeshi women migrant domestic workers in Jordan, together with our partners from Solidarity Center. (Op-Ed by Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women)

The human trafficking case against nine labor brokers and the owner of a Thai fishing company is now on trial and the Solidarity Center is pushing for the case to be moved. “‘We wanted to move the case [to Bangkok] because we are worried about the safety of the victims,’ said Preeda Tongchumnum, a lawyer who works with the Solidarity Center. 

The case was filed on Tuesday at the court, which accepted the case and immediately heard victim testimony, said Preeda Tongchumnum, another lawyer on the case, who also works with the Solidarity Center, a U.S.-based worker rights organization. Also ran in: The Irrawaddy (Myanmar)

Factories give employees a travel allowance of $7, but they often end up spending more on a ragtag band of owner-operator driving services. “For them [the drivers], the more people you get on, the more profit you get,” says William Conklin, country director for international labor rights NGO Solidarity Center. “They’re not concerned about safety, they’re concerned about making ends meet.”

“A study by Rutgers, the AFL-CIO and the Solidarity Center indicates there is a direct link between growing income inequality and declining unionization. Equalizing benefits of union membership is more substantial for women.”