From the moment Yani arrived in Malaysia for her job as a domestic worker, she toiled for a solid year with no break. Her day started at 4 a.m. and went long into the night, seven days a week, as she cleaned and took care of her employer’s child. Yani eventually...
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Informal Workers’ Organizing (WIEGO, 2013)
In overviewing self-organizing among such informal economy workers as waste pickers, domestic workers and construction workers, this report finds the lines are increasingly blurred between jobs in the formal and informal economies. This Solidarity Center report is...
Organizing Women Workers in Palestine
By 4 a.m., Tamam Abdel Hafiz's colleagues are already at the Qalqilia border crossing, talking with some of the more than 4,000 workers who head for jobs each day from Palestine to Israel and West Bank settlements. Hafiz and three other members of the organizing team...
Report Chronicles Rise of Domestic Worker Movement
Domestic workers toil often invisibly, in private homes where they often are subject to abuse. They typically have no protections under nations’ labor laws. Their labor is sometimes not recognized as “real” work. Yet despite the many obstacles they face, domestic...
World Day for Decent Work: Migrant Workers Often Exploited
At age 22, N. Naga Durga Bhavani left her small village in India for Bahrain, where she hoped a job as a domestic worker would help pay for her young daughter’s heart surgery. But when she arrived, after paying labor recruiters the equivalent of nearly two months’...
Informal Workers and Collective Bargaining: Case Studies from India, Georgia, Brazil, Liberia and Uruguay (WIEGO, 2013)
This report details a set of case studies on collective bargaining by informal workers in four different countries: Waste pickers in Minas Gerais state in Brazil, beedi workers in India, Georgia minibus taxi workers and street vendors in Monrovia, Liberia. The study...
Workshop Women Workers Organizing: Examples from India, Brazil and Liberia
Workshop Women Workers Organizing: Examples from India, Brazil and Liberia Panelists • Geeta Koshti, Coordinator, Legal Department, Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), India • Sonia Maria Dias, Ph.D, Sector Specialist, WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment:...
Workshop Young Workers: Challenges Now and in the Future Workshop
Workshop Young Workers: Challenges Now and in the Future Workshop Panelists • Khamati Mugalla, Executive Secretary, East Africa Trade Union Confederation (EATUC) • Aruna Jain, Working America, AFL-CIO, USA Facilitator • Molly McCoy, Solidarity Center Regional Program...
Workshop Utilizing Legal Mechanisms to Fight Gender Discrimination and Support Women Workers Rights
Workshop Utilizing Legal Mechanisms to Fight Gender Discrimination and Support Women Workers Rights Panelists • Ziona Tanzer, Solidarity Center Law Program Counsel, Rule of Law • Matt Hersey, Solidarity Center Rule of Law Program Officer • Lais Abramo, Director, ILO...
Catalysts for Change: Workers Forging Democracy with Innovation
In Tunisia, women helped spur protests that ended autocratic regimes in their country and throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Zimbabwe trade unionists fought years of economic deterioration with innovative research. Across the Dominican Republic, domestic workers...
Colombia: Many Women Workers Face Job Discrimination
In Colombia, “even when there’s an improvement in the overall economy, women don’t see any improvement,” says Sohely Rua Catañeda. As a result, many women who are unable to secure formal employment are forced into the informal sector to support themselves and their...
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: A Workers Center Offers a Model for Aiding Migrant Workers
With no other option to support her family in her native Sri Lanka, Nalani Samarasinghe, 41, has moved to Qatar three times for jobs ranging from 11 months to three years. At her last job as a domestic worker, she was expected to work between 5 a.m. and 1 a.m. daily...
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...
Burmese Migrant Workers Double Their Wages after Strike
As workers around the world celebrated International Labor Day at the beginning of May, more than 500 migrant workers on the Thai-Burmese border took collective action to demand that their employer improve wages and working conditions in a garment factory where they...
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...
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...
C190: MORE THAN A LEGAL INSTRUMENT, A ‘BEACON OF HOPE’
Five years after its adoption by the International Labor Organization (ILO)—a specialized agency of the United Nations—the first global binding treaty to address gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) in the world of work is yielding tangible results, addressing...
Black Women Labor Leaders Unite to Address Global Issues
Black women across the world are experiencing the same issues–despite borders, distances and cultural backgrounds–and the best way to face those challenges are solidarity, coalition building and convening organizations, say Solidarity Center partners who joined the...