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A discussion on WPFW 89.3 about a landmark pact addressing gender-based violence at garment factories in Lesotho–the first-ever binding negotiated agreement by workers, employers and clothing brands to mandate education and awareness trainings for all employees and managers, an independent reporting and monitoring system and remedies for abusive behavior.
“The accord, backed by civil and women’s rights groups, five Lesotho-based labor unions and the U.S.-based Worker Rights Consortium, Solidarity Center and Workers United, will offer protection to more than 10,000 [garment] workers in the southern African nation.”
“Defunding the programs that protect vulnerable people’s human rights and meet their basic needs is a nonsensical approach to combating trafficking,” said Shawna Bader-Blau, the executive director of the Solidarity Center, a global workers rights organization that operates in 60 countries and has been affected by the Trump administration’s decisions.
Through the #MeToo movement, we have seen how gender-based violence and harassment can happen at any workplace. Unions provide a means by which working people most impacted by GBV can have a say in developing solutions that address such deeply-rooted problems, writes the Solidarity Center’s Robin Runge.
In the months-long assault on Bangladesh garment workers protesting poverty wages that began in December women have borne the brunt of the retaliation. And it is increasingly evident that gender-based harassment and violence is the weapon of choice to target worker rights activists in Bangladesh, writes the Solidarity Center’s Monika Hartsel.
Shawna Bader-Blau, director of the advocacy group Solidarity Center, testified to Congress in November that, in Saudi Arabia, “virtually the entire migrant low-wage workforce is in some spectrum of trafficking.”
“The sackings send a chilling message,” said William Conklin, Cambodia country director for the Solidarity Center, a U.S.-based charity promoting labor rights. “But these factory workers are very brave people. In the face of intimidation and harassment from employers and management, they will continue to assert themselves.”
“There have been major strides in eliminating child labor” in factories, said William Conklin, Cambodia country director for the Solidarity Center, a U.S.-based nonprofit promoting workers rights. “But what it doesn’t address is the issue in the subcontract area. That is a big, unknown area in Cambodia.”
A minimum wage has been invaluable for big pools of unskilled workers, said David Welsh, a Southeast Asia country director for labor rights group Solidarity Center. “Any elevation of wages benefits workers. Remove minimum wages from the policy equation and you have a recipe for disaster.”
“[W]hen faced with authoritarian regimes or institutions that deny people their basic rights, unions and other civil society organizations face a choice: Step up, form coalitions and build true economic and political freedom. Or, appease the ruling elite which will, eventually, work to destroy the labor movement,” writes the Solidarity Center’s executive director, Shawna Bader-Blau.