The Solidarity Center joins with unions in Kenya and around the world in championing ratification of the ILO global treaty Convention 189 covering domestic worker rights. Credit: KUDHEIHA
Millions of domestic workers are employed in countries where they are excluded from national labor laws, including limits to working hours, minimum wage and overtime pay. Domestic workers, who are predominately women and sometimes children, toil invisibly in private homes. Some live on their employer’s premises where, away from the public eye, they often are subject to abuse. Nearly one in five domestic workers are international migrants.
The Solidarity Center supports unions around the world as they assist domestic workers in gaining their rights on the job such as in Honduras and Ukraine, where workers formed the first domestic workers union in their countries with the assistance of Solidarity Center partners.
Together with the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF) and the U.S.-based National Domestic Workers Alliance, the Solidarity Center supports leadership, gender equality and rights-based training for domestic workers to strengthen their ability to advocate for improved wages and working conditions.
Many domestic workers migrate for jobs to the Gulf countries and the Middle East, and the Solidarity Center works to advance their rights with union partners in origin and destination countries, such as the Kuwait Trade Union Federation (KTUF), which launched a migrant worker office that assists domestic workers and other migrant workers experiencing wage theft and other forms of exploitation.
The Solidarity Center, which joined with unions and rights organizations in championing passage of the 2011 International Labor Organization’s global treaty (Convention 189) covering domestic worker rights, assists unions in pushing for adoption of the treaty in their countries to ensure domestic work is legally recognized and valued. The Solidarity Center also supports domestic worker unions achieve labor rights in countries such as Mexico, where union partners won the right to written contracts and a ban on employing workers younger than age 15.
Some 40 domestic workers from 17 countries across North and South America and the Caribbean shared organizing tactics, hammered out resolutions and participated in Solidarity Center training on gender-based violence at work at a recent conference in São Paulo, Brazil....
Migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China, must live with their employers, according to a court ruling this week that rejected a case by a Philippine migrant worker who argued the rule violates Hong Kong SAR’s Bill of Rights and...
When Fauzia Muthoni arrived in Qatar from Kenya to work as a receptionist and earn money to support her family, the labor agent traveling with her informed Muthoni the job was in Saudi Arabia and escorted her to another plane. She tried calling her family, but...
Wage theft is widespread throughout the the public- and private-sectors, with Zimbabweans working months without a paycheck. Based on surveys at 442 companies, the report documents the vast scope of wage theft; outlines the responsibilities of the state under...
Convening experts from the AFL-CIO, the Rutgers University Center for Women’s Global Leadership and the Solidarity Center, this report examines how to shift governments' policy priorities, create an enabling environment for social organizing and transform women’s...
Unions are key drivers advancing gender equality. Yet in many countries around the world, there is a disconnect between labor union policy and practice in transforming gender inequalities within trade unions. Through the lens of the South African union movement, this...
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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...
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.
