Jun 10, 2016
Solidarity Center allies—congressional lawmakers, policymakers, union leaders, human rights and democracy representatives and others—gathered on Capitol Hill to mark the launch of the Global Labor Program, a five-year cooperative effort by the Solidarity Center and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to promote worker rights, gender equality and democracy worldwide.
“Development cannot be sustained or inclusive without the availability of decent work,” said USAID Administrator Gayle E. Smith. “How do we reach workers? Through the Global Labor Program.
The following are photo highlights from the June 7, 2016, Washington, D.C., event.
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Jun 8, 2016
Dozens of congressional lawmakers, policymakers, union leaders, human rights and democracy representatives and other Solidarity Center allies gathered on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., yesterday to mark the launch of the Global Labor Program, a cooperative effort by the Solidarity Center and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to promote worker rights, gender equality and democracy worldwide.
![global labor program, Solidarity Center, Sandy Levin, human rights](http://www.solidaritycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/GLP-event.panorama.6.16.lau_-300x118.jpg)
Rep. Sandy Levin spoke to a packed audience marking the launch of the Global Labor Program. Credit: Solidarity Center/Lauren Stewart
Opening the event, USAID Administrator Gayle E. Smith said, “Development cannot be sustained or inclusive without the availability of decent work. How do we reach workers? Through the Global Labor Program.”
The five-year Global Labor Program will further expand labor rights and strengthen workers’ ability to achieve decent work, lift the voices of disenfranchised workers and broaden gender equality.
![Rep. Jim McGovern, Solidarity Center, global labor program, human rights](http://www.solidaritycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/GLP-event.Jim-McGovern.6.16.Jessica-Benton-Cooney-USAID-300x199.jpg)
Rep. Jim McGovern: The Solidarity Center has stood by workers no matter how difficult the circumstances. Credit: Jessica Benton-Cooney/USAID
Praising the Solidarity Center for ensuring the “voiceless have a voice,” U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez told the packed crowd that “the Global Labor Program is first and foremost about expanding worker voice and enabling workers to have meaningful input in the decisions that impact their lives and the lives of their families.
“When workers obtain their rights, it is almost always a step toward democracy,” said Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.). Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) also took part in opening the event.
![Nita Lowey, Solidarity Center, human rights, global labor program](http://www.solidaritycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/GLP-event.Nita-Lowey.6.16.Jessica-Benton-Cooney-USAID.crop_-263x300.jpg)
Rep. Nita Lowey: “Labor justice remains essential.” Credit: Jessica Benton-Cooney/USAID
In a letter to the gathering, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) wrote, “Solidarity Center’s ongoing work with civil society, labor unions and other governments is helping to promote both the universal values of human rights … in countries ranging from Colombia to Bangladesh.”
Following the opening remarks, moderated by David Yang, deputy assistant administrator in USAID’s Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, experts from the development community took part in a panel discussion to examine the role of labor rights and civic participation in fostering more just and sustainable development.
Working People Hard-hit by Closing Civic Space
Panel moderator, Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau noted how “the effect of closing space is felt acutely by labor.”
![Shawna Bader-Blau, USAID Director Gayle Smith, Labor Secretary Tom Perez, global labor program, human rights](http://www.solidaritycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/GLP-event.SBB-Gayle-Smith-Thomas-Perez.6.16.Jessica-Benton-Cooney-USAID-300x210.jpeg)
Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau, USAID Director Gayle Smith and Labor Secretary Thomas Perez at the Global Labor Program launch. Credit: Jessica Benton Cooney/USAID
“A forthcoming global survey by the International Trade Union Confederation is about to show a substantial global rise in documented attacks on worker speech and assembly rights, and specifically anti-union violence,” Bader-Blau said.
InterAction President Lindsay Coates continued the discussion on closing space for civil society, saying that “independent civil society is essential, but in country after country we see a growing crackdown on civil society space making it more difficult or even impossible for civic sector to do what it needs to do to help bring peaceful, sustainable ends to intractable crises and to advocate with governments and the private sector to push for development solutions and economic policies that really work for average people.”
Unions Needed to Secure Good Wages, Conditions for Migrant Workers
Turning the focus to labor migration, Jon Stivers, USAID assistant administrator of the Bureau for Asia, said labor and migration are crucial development issues in Asia—and unions are key to securing good wages and working conditions.
Further, “holding governments accountable is key to worker rights and open civil society,” he said.
![InterAction Lindsay Coates, USAID Jon Stivers, EATUC Caroline Mugalla, ICRW Sarah Grammage, EICC Rob Lederer](http://www.solidaritycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/GLP-event.Lindsay-Coates-Jon-Stivers-Caroline-Mugalla-Sarah-Grammage-Rob-Lederer.6.16.Jessica-Benton-Cooney-USAID-300x114.jpg)
Event panelists included (from left): InterAction President Lindsay Coates, Jon Stivers, USAID; Caroline Mugalla, EATUC; Sarah Gammage, ICRW; and Rob Lederer, EICC. Credit: Jessica Benton-Cooney/USAID
Caroline Mugalla, executive secretary of the East African Trade Union Confederation (EATUC), said some 80 percent of workers across East Africa—60 percent of whom are young people—have jobs in the informal economy, meaning they generally are paid low wages, receive no sick leave, pensions or other social protections and labor in often unsafe conditions.
“If the issue of social protections is not talked about, especially for young people, we are not talking about sustainable development,” she said.
Women’s Economic Empowerment Crucial to Development
Discussing how sustainable development requires ensuring gender equality, Sarah Gammage, director of Gender, Economic Empowerment and Livelihoods at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), said strong unions bolster gender equality.
“Women’s economic empowerment is crucial to development, but we often neglect the connection between workers’ rights and gender rights,” she said.
Rob Lederer, executive director of the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC), also took part in the panel. The EICC is a nonprofit coalition of electronics companies committed to supporting the rights and well-being of workers and communities worldwide affected by the global electronics supply chain.
Closing the event, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Tefere Gebre described the difficult conditions for workers he has witnessed first-hand in countries like Colombia and Ethiopia, saying, “worker rights are under attack in far too many countries.
“Our economies are inextricably connected, and we—as workers—are either going to be pitted against each other in a race to the bottom or we are going to be rising together creating shared prosperity for everyone.”
Jun 10, 2015
Governments of migrants’ countries of origin could be doing much more to harness the phenomenon of labor migration toward inclusive growth, according to a new report that investigated high-migration communities in Indonesia.
The study, which examined the role of labor migration in achieving the aims of an inclusive growth agenda in origin countries, looked at communities in West Nusa Tenggara, the Indonesian province that sends the highest ratio of its population for overseas work. It found that wages sent home by Indonesians who migrate for work are not supporting local job creation in origin communities. Further, it finds that the poorest communities in Indonesia are most likely to send migrants into informal economy jobs.
“Remittance capital (the money sent home by migrant workers) has not stimulated broad-based economic development complete with an increase in job opportunities … in spite of migration from these localities of more than 30 years,” the report states. As a result, “community members cannot envision a future in which the demand to migrate has ceased.”
“Labor Migration and Inclusive Growth: Toward Creating Employment in Origin Communities” also found that Indonesian workers’ main incentive for migrating out of the country is not dire poverty nor lack of jobs at home but a lack of just jobs—those that provide a stable salary and opportunities for economic mobility.
While Indonesia is facilitating a slow transition in its overseas workforce from informal economy work to jobs in the formal economy, migrants from West Nusa Tenggara, who are among the poorest and primarily women, still have few options except jobs as domestic workers. The uneven pattern of international migration across the country is a result of inequitable access to education, training and capital across regions at home.
While Indonesia is facilitating a slow transition in its overseas workforce from informal economy work to jobs in the formal economy, migrants from West Nusa Tenggara, who are among the poorest, are primarily women and still wind up in jobs as This uneven pattern of international migration across the country is a result of uneven access to education, training and capital across regions at home.
“The [Indonesian] government sees return migrants primarily as consumers rather than producers. Moreover, it values remittances more for their ability to improve Indonesia’s balance of payments and reduce foreign exchange shortages, rather than for their potential to serve as start-up capital for job-creating enterprises,” the report notes.
The report concludes that an “economic growth agenda in countries like Indonesia that does not entail a roadmap for creating employment opportunities in communities of origin lacks inclusivity.”
JustJobs Network produced the report, supported by the Solidarity Center with U.S. Agency for International Development funding. The report is part of the Center’s Transformation of Work research series, which is designed to expand scholarship on and understanding of issues facing workers in an increasingly globalized world, and supports the efforts of the Solidarity Center and its partners to document challenges to decent work and the strategies workers and their organizations engage to overcome those challenges.
See all Solidarity Center-supported reports on migration.
May 22, 2015
This paper investigates the intersection of labor migration and the inclusive growth agenda, and seeks to recommend policies so governments of origin countries can, in part, expand labor migration’s positive impacts by making migrant workers agents in promoting and realizing an inclusive growth agenda in their origin communities.
Download here.
May 21, 2015
Fordham University law professor Jennifer Gordon examines the roles of guest workers as organizers, monitors and policy-setters in supply chain initiatives and other efforts to address labor recruitment violations.
Download here.