“Workers around the world are confronting serious challenges to whether they can exercise their rights and work with dignity. Among them are labor markets and systems that generate, rather than alleviate, poverty; and governments that fail to protect workers​,” says Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau.

William Conklin said fashion brands are partly to blame for poor wages in factories producing their clothing. “What we see now is that brands squeeze factories and therefore workers,” he said. “If you a pay a low price per piece of clothing, that dribbles down to the workers. Workers are now being seen as disposable.”​​

Throughout the Solidarity Center’s recent conference, “Achieving Fair Migration: Roles of African Trade Unions and Their Partners,” union leaders and migrant rights advocates explored the xenophobia, racism and sexism migrant workers face, and sought to increase vital connections between unions and civil society organisations to campaign for laws and policies to level the playing field for migrant workers.