The COVID-19 pandemic has hit workers hard—but women have especially suffered compared with men, experiencing higher rates of unemployment, discrimination and exposure to the virus, and skyrocketing rates of gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH), speakers said...
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Billions of Us, One Just Future: Solidarity Center Podcast Launches Today
“Violence and harassment happens to all workers, irrespective of your gender,” says Brenda Modise, a union activist in South Africa. “It doesn't matter whether they are men and women, old young LGBTQI community or anyone, but we are addressing violence and harassment...
LEADERSHIP
Shawna Bader-Blau, Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau leads the Solidarity Center—the largest global worker rights organization based in the United States—and its 400-plus staff in headquarters and 35 field offices, and programs in more than 60 countries. Shawna...
Report: Climate Change in Bangladesh Drives Worker Vulnerability, Poverty
Underscoring the immediate risk of severe climate-induced weather events in South Asia, Cyclone Amphan last month slammed into the coast of eastern India and southern Bangladesh, destroying thousands of homes and killing at least 88 people. A new Solidarity Center...
Women & Their Unions Stand Strong during COVID-19
In Tunisia, 150 women garment workers self-quarantined in their factory to manufacture desperately needed protective masks, churning out 50,000 a day as the COVID-19 crisis broke out. The South African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (SACTWU) reached an agreement...
From Haiti to Kenya, Unions Take Action on COVID-19
Just as the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the massive global economic and social inequality around the world, with workers in the informal economy and supply chains, and migrant workers—many of whom are women—especially marginalized, so, too, does it...
COVID-19: Unions Mobilize Across Middle East/N. Africa
Across the Middle East and North Africa, unions and worker associations are mobilizing to educate workers about their rights during the COVID-19 crisis, provide them with resources to protect themselves and their families, and push for fair treatment at the workplace....
Union Women Rock 16 Days of Activism Against GBVH
During the recent 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, workers and their unions from Honduras to Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Nigeria and Bangladesh made big gains raising awareness about gender-based violence and harassment at work (GBVH) and demanding that...
Worker Rights Lawyers Share Successes, Strategies
The ability of workers to freely form unions is such a fundamental human right that the United Nations (UN) holds countries accountable for violating those rights, according to Lance Compa, senior lecturer in labor law at Cornell University. “Even countries that have...
Report: Call to Action for Rights of People on the Move
The freedom to speak, join unions and take part in community life are basic human rights that apply to all people—including migrant workers and refugees, panelists at a United Nations side event said this afternoon in New York City. “Migrant workers and refugees don’t...
MAY DAY 2019: STANDING UP FOR WORKER RIGHTS ACROSS THE GLOBE
From Haiti to Kenya, Nepal and Palestine, hundreds of thousands of workers and their families celebrated International Workers Day last week, honoring the dignity of work and the accomplishments of the labor movement in defending human rights, job stability, fair...
Worker Rights Attacks Part of Human Rights Crackdown
Human rights activists around the world celebrated the recent release from prison of two union leaders in Kazakhstan who were convicted of bogus criminal charges after participating in a peaceful workers’ protest against the forced closure of the country’s main...
Kyrgyz Worker in Kazakhstan Paid $100 for 6 Months’ Work
Aldaberdi Karimov, 42, who lives in a remote Kyrgyzstan village in the Batken region, did not want to migrate from his country to find work to support his family, including his daughter, Ak Maral, now 5 years old. But like many in Kyrgyzstan, where remittances from...
Publications and Interviews
Shawna Bader-Blau No Rights, No Recovery: Toward a Worker-Centered, Post-Pandemic World, University of Pennsylvania Perry World House publication, A Fracturing World: The Future of Globalization, Fall 2022 Organizing Domestic Workers: The Unfinished Business of Labor...
Decent Work Forum: ‘With a Union, We May Fight Together’
Ending human trafficking. Ensuring all employers treat workers fairly. Giving voice to migrant workers around the world. Creating a world in which women are treated equally to men. These are some of the broad goals participants at the Solidarity Center Forum on Decent...
Decent Work Forum: Sharing Strategies for Success
Following heartfelt rounds of songs on workers’ struggles and union solidarity, some 30 worker rights advocates launched the second day of the Forum on Decent Work for Agricultural Women and Domestic Workers. Discussions centered on the lack of migrant worker rights...
Kenya Union: Ban on Labor Recruiting Agencies Should Stay
The Central Organization of Trade Unions–Kenya (COTU-K) said the country’s recent decision to lift its ban on workers migrating to Qatar and Saudi Arabia for jobs is “ill advised,” and urges the government to keep the ban in place until the Ministry of Labor provides...
Decent Work Day: Focus on Living Wages
When Mwahamisi Josiah Makori, a Kenyan mother of three who worked as a domestic worker in Saudi Arabia, first arrived at her new employer’s house, she was given only 20 minutes before she began work. After that, she began a three-month period which involved hard...
Nepal Reconstruction Offers Chance to Create Decent Jobs
As Nepal rebuilds two years after a major earthquake killed thousands of people and displaced millions, the country has an opportunity to achieve more equitable economic development by laying the foundation for an environment that fosters good jobs that sustain...
Solidarity Center: 20 Years Working for Worker Rights
Over the past 20 years, the Solidarity Center has helped eliminate child labor in Liberian rubber plantations; assisted Iraqi trade unions in passing an unprecedented labor law that addresses sexual discrimination at work; campaigned to end workplace-based racism...