Afro-Colombians are far likelier than other Colombian workers to earn less than the minimum wage and to be employed in jobs where they cannot form unions to improve their working conditions. And all of this exclusion “has a strong current of racial discrimination...
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Working Women Empowered: Building Strength Through Unions
Women make up more than 40.5 percent of the workforce worldwide, according to the most recent data by the International Labor Organization. But their labor has not resulted in a similar increase in financial well-being. Far from it. Although women contribute 66...
Haitian Workers Speak out for Good Jobs
Three years after the devastating 2010 earthquake, Haitian workers are organizing to ensure that foreign investment and infrastructure-targeted aid provide not just subsistence-level jobs, but decent work and a living wage for Haitians. "We don’t want ‘Haiti Open for...
Kenya: A Commitment to Unionize Informal-Sector Workers
Millions of people around the world labor in the informal economy as taxi drivers, fruit sellers and in other jobs partially or fully outside government regulation and taxation. In Kenya, where the informal sector accounts for 80 percent of employment and contributes...
SRI LANKA: Migrants Gain Voice and Protections, Sources (2013)
The primary sources for this publication were first-person interviews conducted by the Solidarity Center. Other sources are noted below. "Sri Lanka," BBC Profile-South Asia, March 25, 2013. "Tsunami Death Toll," CNN, February 22, 2005. "More Sri Lankans Suffering...
World Bank Report: Worker Rights Key to Addressing Global Jobs Crisis
As the new year begins, the ongoing global jobs crisis means workers everywhere are still struggling to find employment—some 200 million people, including 75 million age 25 or younger, are unemployed. Millions more, most of them women, are shut out of the labor...
Nicaragua the Third Nation to Adopt Domestic Work Standard
Nicaragua this week became the third country to ratify the International Labor Organization (ILO) convention on domestic workers. An ILO “convention” sets international labor standards, and the “Decent Work for Domestic Workers” convention addresses issues such as...
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Meets with Cambodian Women Unionists, Defends Worker Rights
During her tour of Southeast Asia, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged the greater protection of worker rights, improvement of labor standards, and the empowerment of women following a private meeting in Cambodia with union leaders and labor...
Georgia: Establishing Formal Agreements for Workers in Informal Markets
With a labor code that disadvantages workers and an increasingly hostile attitude toward the rights of working people, the Republic of Georgia is no easy place to join or persist in a union. This is particularly true for people trying to eke out a living in the...
Informal Economy Conference Agenda
Conference Summary and Proceedings Agenda Friday December 2, 2011 Keynote Address Shawna Bader-Blau, Executive Director, Solidarity Center Research Presentation: Trade Union Responses to Organizing in the Informal Economy Rutgers University researchers Panel Response:...
Organizing Workers in the Informal Economy: A Global Challenge and Imperative
The issues, needs, and experiences of informal workers were the focus of a two-day conference held in Cape Town, South Africa, and organized by the Solidarity Center. With the support of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the December 2–3 meeting...