Oct 28, 2024
More than 200 International Lawyers Assisting Workers Network (ILAW) members gathered in Casablanca, Morocco, October 9 to 11 at their 2024 Global Conference to share ideas and to collaborate on legal strategies to promote and defend worker rights.
The Solidarity Center established the ILAW Network in 2018 as a way for pro-labor lawyers worldwide to bring together legal practitioners and scholars in an exchange of ideas and information in order to best represent the rights and interests of workers and their organizations wherever they may be.
ILAW lawyers working together have taken legal strategies that are successful in one country and deploy them elsewhere. In doing so, they have set new legal precedents that build a stronger foundation for the expansion of worker rights around the globe.
Credit: Mosa’ab Elshamy
Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau welcomed attendees, describing the network of over 1,300 members in more than 90 countries as “uniquely situated to take on global corporations suppressing worker rights.”
She cited the successful advocacy of women labor lawyers for new International Labor Organization (ILO) treaties, like Convention 189 on domestic workers and Convention 190 on violence and harassment. She also noted the inclusion of a plenary on feminism and labor law in this year’s conference as an example of ILAW’s leadership driving the global labor movement agenda towards equity.
Solidarity Center Rule of Law Director and ILAW Network Chair Jeffrey Vogt laid out the conference’s purpose. “Around the world, the rights of workers and unions are under attack. Employers are well-resourced and coordinated in their efforts to shape law and policy. It is essential that workers and unions do the same. Through ILAW, we can learn from each other, build from successes and failures, and strengthen our impact through legal solidarity.”
Vogt also highlighted the importance of the feminism and labor law plenary: “The ILAW Network is a feminist network, and we are proud of that. Labor law needs to work for everyone. Having a labor law that is feminist is a way to make it work for everyone.”
Credit: Mosa’ab Elshamy
The importance of interconnectedness was woven throughout many plenary sessions and discussions. Networking, learning from and collaborating across countries and regions was a key part of the conference, as attendees talked about the commonalities of their work.
The opening plenary, moderated by Solidarity Center’s Rule of Law Deputy Director Monika Mehta, focused on the impact of technology in the world of work, including but not only digital platform workers, from Amazon warehouses workers to content moderators for major social media firms.
Panelist Liz Lenjo described the content moderators in Kenya who filed a lawsuit against Meta (the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Threads) and Sama, the local contractor, citing poor working conditions, union busting and inadequate mental health support.
These workers were hired to screen posts, videos and messages for Facebook and remove harmful or offensive content. Workers spent hours viewing violent and disturbing images and videos. They were left on their own to deal with the psychological trauma. In a landmark ruling, the Kenyan court determined it had jurisdiction over Meta.
Credit: Mosa’ab Elshamy
Sandra Muñoz discussed how women in Colombia’s parliament recently passed legislation to prohibit gender-based harassment in the workplace and linked the fight for gender equality to equality for all. “Unless we can overcome gender inequality,” Muñoz said, “we can’t overcome inequality as a whole.”
Kayan Leung also described successful litigation she undertook in South Africa to establish parity in paid parental leave in order that the responsibility of care does not default to women. The ILAW Network filed an amicus brief in that case.
During the panel on Just Transition, Angelica Maria Palacios Martinez spoke about the efforts to get Colombia’s government to recognize trade unions’ essential role in Just Transition and protecting the whole population. “From the trade union world, we have called out the government to recognize us as a key player, she said, “so that these public policies are focused on protecting the entire population, and in particular, protecting the workers.”
Abdullah Nahid of the Maldives, one of the countries most affected by climate change, described union efforts to support workers in the tourism and fisheries sector.
On the panel on the informal economy, Madhulika Tatigotla discussed the growth of the informal economy in India. India’s informal economy continues to grow, as the formal sector continues to informalize as, for example, 40 percent of factory workers are now on temporary contracts. Recently, workers and their legal advocates developed a comprehensive draft law for workers in the informal economy to extend labor rights and benefits.
In the final right to strike plenary, Paapa Danquah noted the increasing international threats to the right to strike, linking it to civil liberties. “The attack on the right to strike on the international level is the first step to taking away the right to strike everywhere,” Danquah said. “Whenever you see attacks on the right to strike, there are also attacks on collective bargaining and civil liberty.” He described how the ITUC was involved in litigation before the International Court of Justice to protect the right to strike as a principle of international law.
As the conference ended, attendees discussed priorities for the coming year, from more collaboration between all members to deepening national and regional labor law networks, cross-pollination between ILAW regions, increasing engagement with social movements and Indigenous communities in order to support union growth. Attendees left the conference energized and committed to forging a robust labor law network for a stronger global labor movement.
Aug 2, 2024
Millions of workers still face widespread discrimination in employment and at the workplace—even though 65 years ago, 175 countries adopted an international convention seeking equality of opportunity and treatment.
“We still find that employers find very clever ways in which to create vulnerability in the workplace,” said Nomzama Zondo, executive director of the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa, speaking this week at a panel in South Africa.
Panelists gathered in Johannesburg to discuss “A Promise Not Realised: The Right to Non-Discrimination in Work and Employment,” an Issue Brief by the International Lawyers Assisting Workers Network (ILAW) in collaboration with the Equal Rights Trust (ERT).
The panel in South Africa follows an initial launch in spring, and is among several planned this year in countries highlighted by the report, including Colombia, Brazil, the United Kingdom and India.
“A Promise Not Realised” first looks at conventions countries have adopted, such as the 1958 International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 111 Discrimination in Respect of Employment and Occupation or Discrimination which creates a legal obligation on countries to prohibit and remedy discrimination at work.
Ultimately, the report identifies the means by which countries can create enabling environments to effectively prevent workplace discrimination and provide labor justice when it occurs.
Discrimination Widespread in Informal Economy
The report also specifically addresses non-discrimination in the informal economy, recognizing that those working informally lack recourse to justice and remedy.
“There is an inherently discriminatory dynamic between those within and without the formal employment sector,” says Jim Fitzgerald, ERT director, overviewing the report in the initial webinar earlier this year.
Panelists said the research confirms that informal economy workers are more likely to experience discrimination and mistreatment because of a lack of recourse to justice and remedy.
Ensuring non-discrimination in the informal economy is key: Some 2 billion people rely on informal work as a source of income, according to the ILO.
Many informal workers also are migrant workers. As in the majority of countries in the report, some South African respondents noted that their legal status means migrant workers may be disproportionately concentrated in particular forms of work and experience unique challenges in these areas.
As Fitzgerald said: “International law does not simply require states to prohibit discrimination. It requires states to eliminate discrimination through ‘all appropriate means.’ “
Platform workers are a growing group of informal sector workers globally, including in South Africa, where Omar Parker described how recently formed unions are grappling with achieving rights. “The only way now for us in the English e-hailing sector is to be organized independently,” said Parker, general secretary for the Western cape E-hailing Association (WCEA).
Unions a Key Driver of Change
The report finds that in nearly all countries studied, experts spoke of the central role of trade unions in achieving legislative reform on equality and non-discrimination.
With a collective bargaining agreement, union members also can negotiate for equality of opportunity and treatment with respect to employment occupation, with a view to eliminating any discrimination.
Participants noted that governments must create an enabling environment for workers to exercise their freedom of association, enabling them to demand equality in the workplace.
“Discrimination is fundamental about power asymmetries in a society, which can most effectively be addressed through collective action,” said Jeff Vogt, ILAW Network chair and Rule of Law director at the Solidarity Center. “We hope that this research is useful in providing evidence and examples as to how laws and institutions can be improved to make anti-discrimination laws more effective in practice through collective protection and redress.”
In addition to Parker and Zondo, panelists included: Siza Nyiko Mlambo, leader of the Simunye Workers Forum; and speakers Sam Barnes, ERT researcher; and Debbie Collier, a lead report researcher, member of the Center for Transformative Regulation of Work and law professor at the University of the Western Cape.
The ILAW Network, a project of the Solidarity Center, includes more than 1,300 members in 95 countries, regularly provides legal labor rights assistance and information, and publishes The Global Labour Rights Reporter on key issues in four languages.
Nov 21, 2023
Sexual harassment and other forms of gender-based violence are rampant in garment factories in Bangladesh and throughout the textile production and retail industry in South Africa, according to two recently published Solidarity Center reports. The sample surveys are among a broad spectrum of outreach by Solidarity Center partners who also are addressing gender inequities through awareness efforts among informal economy workers and workers with disabilities in Nigeria, in labor rights and career workshops in Armenia and Georgia, and among app-based drivers in multiple countries.
In addressing the root causes of GBVH in the world of work, a priority for the Solidarity Center, workers and civil society join together to advocate collectively beyond the workplace to push for policy and legal reform, expanding democracy.
November 25 marks the start of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, an annual international campaign in which union activists stand in solidarity with women’s rights activists to highlight the prevalence of GBVH at the workplace and to support feminist movements around the world in calling for a world free from GBVH. The campaign culminates on December 10, Human Rights Day.
As activists mobilize worldwide, here’s a snapshot of how Solidarity Center and its partners are moving forward efforts to end GBVH at the workplace and achieve decent, inclusive work for all.
Garment Industry: Rife with GBVH
Because so little data exists on the prevalence of GBVH at workplaces, union activists and their allies in Bangladesh and South Africa sought to document workers’ experiences at garment factories and clothing outlets. Solidarity Center partners previously conducted similar studies in Cambodia, Indonesia and Nigeria.
In South Africa, 98 percent of the 117 workers surveyed said they had experienced one or more forms of GBVH at work. The Bangladesh survey found severe outcomes for workers who experienced GBVH at work, with 89 percent saying they “broke down mentally” and 45 percent reporting leaving their jobs temporarily and/or losing pay. The survey involved 120 workers in 103 garment factories and was conducted by 21 activists from grassroots and worker organizations.
In many cases, workers’ jobs and wages were at risk if they did not agree to sex with employers or managers. In Bangladesh, 57 percent of survey participants said they lost their jobs because they refused such overtures. As one survey participant in South Africa said:
“My manager called me to his office and said that if I want to extend my hours of work, I must go out with him. He kept on asking, even forcefully and aggressively … I heard from other women workers that he had also asked them.” Survey participants were not identified for their safety.
Both surveys were conducted through participatory action research, rooted in collaboration, education, developing skills and centered on a “Do No Harm” ethos to avoid re-traumatizing interviewees. Through worker-driven strategies to address and prevent GBVH in the garment sector, the processes created a set of recommendations including urging employers to enforce zero tolerance policies for GBVH and for unions to prioritize GBVH prevention and make women worker safety a core union priority.
Key to the recommendations is ratification and enforcement of an international treaty on ending violence and harassment at work. Convention 190 was approved by the International Labor Organization (ILO) in 2019 after a decade-long campaign led in part by the Solidarity Center and its partners. C190 now must be ratified by governments, and union activists are mobilizing members and allies in ratification campaigns that include awareness-raising about GBVH at work. South African unions, led by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), successfully pushed for ratification in 2021.
Reaching Marginalized Workers
Amina Lawal, a Solidarity Center-trained GBVH researcher, leads the way for Nigerian Labor Congress leaders in Lagos’s Mile 12 market. Credit Solidarity Center / Nkechi Odinukwe
In Nigeria, union activists are using awareness raising to address the intersecting challenges facing workers with disabilities who also experience GBVH and gender discrimination at work. Through a weekly radio program and public service ads, the program elevates the voices of workers with disabilities who already are marginalized because of their status, providing a platform where they discuss their concerns around GBVH and access to equal rights to work and pay.
The program stems from recommendations in a survey of more than 600 workers with disabilities in Nigeria by the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) to create mass awareness of disability rights and GBVH.
The radio program also is an avenue to reach workers in Nigeria’s large informal economy. Following the adoption of C190, union leaders at the Nigeria Labor Congress (NLC), with Solidarity Center support, began training vendors at the sprawling Mile 12 market in Lagos. The vendors formed a GBVH task force that worked with the NLC to develop a market code of conduct covering gender-based violence and harassment and helped raise awareness among vendors about their rights to a violence-free workplace.
Their outreach resulted in the identification of multiple cases of rape and sexual assault against minors, who often assist their parents in the market. Five people have been arrested and now are awaiting trial for allegedly violating the rights of children between 9 and 14 years old, said Agnes Funmi Sessi, NLC Lagos State Council chairperson.
Building Leadership Skills, Building Power
The OxYGen foundation in Armenia, with Solidarity Center support, held “Women for Labor Rights” seminars this year as part of its professional empowerment network. Credit: Solidarity Center
Building leadership and power within historically marginalized populations to take on issues and traditional hierarchies is a key part of Solidarity Center’s focus on ensuring equality and inclusion at the workplace.
In Armenia and Georgia, young women workers are learning crucial employment skills as part of Strengthening Women’s Participation in the Workforce, a Solidarity Center-supported program in partnership with professional networks and other civil society organizations. The project seeks to increase women’s full, equal and safe participation in the workforce, including vulnerable women workers’ access to decent work. Training sessions include exposure to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professions and other career development, and cover labor rights, including the right to a safe and healthy workplace. The programs reach women in rural areas, many of whom are marginalized with limited access to job opportunities and skills building.
In Armenia, where the project operates as the Women Professional Empowerment Network (WPEN), young women take part in an interactive exchange that fosters the development of a supportive network and includes upskilling and raising awareness of employment opportunities, along with advice and guidance about the most in-demand new careers.
Women Delivery Drivers Stand Strong Together
“Not just in Colombia, but worldwide, women are always the ones that are the most vulnerable and paid the worst”—Luz Myriam Fique Cárdenas. Credit: UNIDAPP_Jhonniel Colina
Addressing GBVH is an essential part of campaigns mobilizing app-based drivers to achieve their rights on the job, including the freedom to form unions, as the safety risks they face every day are especially compounded for women platform workers.
“Not just in Colombia, but worldwide, women are always the ones that are the most vulnerable and paid the worst,” Luz Myriam Fique Cárdenas told participants earlier this year at a Solidarity Center-sponsored event, Women Workers Organizing: Transforming the Gig Economy through Collective Action. “We suffer harassment. We don’t have security in the streets because we’re women,” said Cárdenas, president of Unión de Trabajadores de Plataformas (Union of Platform Workers, UNIDAPP) in Colombia.
Recently in Mexico, the Solidarity Center hosted women delivery drivers from seven countries in Latin America and in Nigeria. The eight unions participating agreed on five key gender-focused points for inclusion in the Convention on Decent Work on Digital Platforms now being drafted for consideration by the ILO. The women leaders at the Alza La Voz (Raise Our Voice) forum are planning a joint campaign to ensure the convention addresses the specific challenges women app-based workers face.
As throughout the campaigns to end GBVH at work, women app-based drivers are finding strength in joining together and experiencing the power to improve working conditions through collective action.
“We have to create alliances,” Shair Tovar, gender secretary of the National Union of Digital Workers (UNTA) in Mexico, told participants. “Women can achieve enormous things together.”
Sep 13, 2022
This September 15, International Day of Democracy, people in more and more countries are faced with growing authoritarianism and shrinking space to freely participate in civil society.
Yet authoritarian regimes can be countered and democracy fostered through the actions of vibrant labor movements, according to two lawyers and guests on the latest episode of The Solidarity Center Podcast.
“There’s extensive research and empirical studies on the working class and unions and the critical role that they’ve played in forging and defending democracies,” Cornell University law professor Angela Cornell tells Podcast host and Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau. “The organized working class was the primary carrier of democracy, playing a decisive role in the forging of democratic regimes and the most consistently pro-democratic force, which pushed forward and fought for democracy against the resistance of other class actors.
Unions, in Coalition, Advance Democracy in Colombia
A recent example is unfolding in Colombia, where a diverse coalition of unions, young people, members of Black and Indigenous communities and others joined together to craft changes to the country’s laws that reflect the needs of workers and all communities historically marginalized by the government. Their efforts resulted in the election of a progressive slate of candidates in August, including Francia Márquez, a former housekeeper, union member and Colombia’s first Black vice president.
“We had focused so many of our efforts on changing, on getting to pick something different in over 200 years of our republic,” says labor lawyer and union activist Mery Laura Perdomo. “We focused on taking the streets. Every union became essential where the campaign was discussed. They became forums for the discussion of politics, on how to change the country. In every square you would see students talking to the citizens about the different candidates, about the different political programs and why this was important.”
Perdomo, who is on staff with the Solidarity Center and International Lawyers Assisting Workers (ILAW) network, and Cornell, who recently co-edited the Cambridge Handbook of Labor and Democracy, describe how unions’ role in reducing economic inequality, strengthening the social safety net and uniting diverse groups create more democratic outcomes.
Listen to the full episode.
MORE SOLIDARITY CENTER PODCASTS!
Listen to this episode and all Solidarity Center episodes here or at Spotify, Amazon, Stitcher, or wherever you subscribe to your favorite podcasts.
Download recent episodes:
Nov 3, 2021
Police violence, which escalated during COVID-19, is part of a rising tide of global crackdowns targeting marginalized communities, workers and young people struggling to support themselves. The latest episode of The Solidarity Center Podcast looks at how workers in Colombia and Nigeria—targeted by police brutality as they staged peaceful protests to address inequality—are joining and leading large movements to demand new levels of accountability from and reform of the authorities charged with protecting and serving their communities.
Podcast host and Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau talks with Francisco Maltés, president of the Unitary Workers Center (CUT) in Colombia, and Gbenga, general secretary and founder of the Federation of Informal Workers’ Organizations of Nigeria. They describe how workers, especially those living most on the edge, are taking back their communities by standing up for justice and opposing decades of widespread, systemic corruption that feeds off state-sponsored violence.
“Justice and police activity in Colombia can be characterized as being directed at poor people,” says Maltés. “The National Strike Committee has proposed a bill for reforming the national police force.”
Catch More from Season Two!
Listen to this and all Solidarity Center episodes here or at Spotify, Amazon, Stitcher, Castbox or wherever you subscribe to your favorite podcasts.
Catch recent Season Two episodes:
The Solidarity Center Podcast, “Billions of Us, One Just Future,” highlights conversations with workers (and other smart people) worldwide shaping the workplace for the better.