During the COVID-19 pandemic, members of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, a Solidarity Center partner, tested workers for fever. Credit: PGFTU
Each year, more than 2 million workers die on the job—more than 6,000 a day worldwide. Hundreds of millions more workers a year suffer from non-fatal job-related accidents and illnesses.
The global coronavirus pandemic highlighted and exacerbated the vast inequities facing working people as many risked exposure to the virus without protective safety equipment, tending to sick patients, staffing grocery stores and driving public transport.
In partnership with the Solidarity Center, unions negotiated stepped-up protections and improved wages for workers who risked their lives on the front lines of the crisis, and supported unions as they worked with governments and employers to ensure those furloughed or laid off during the pandemic received wages and social protections such as access to food distribution and unemployment compensation.
Around the world, the Solidarity Center supports networks of unions that are pushing for workplace health and safety measures, such as in Serbia, where unions created a national network of trade union activists to improve workplace safety and health monitoring, and bargain collectively with employers to expand such protections for all workers, regardless of whether they are union members.
On April 28, workers and worker rights activists like the Solidarity Center observe World Day for Safety and Health at Work, an annual day of remembrance for workers who died or were injured on the job and a day to renew the struggle for decent work—family-supporting wages, sick leave and other benefits and safe and healthy working conditions.
Sabina, a domestic worker from Bangladesh, has worked in Jordan for the past eight years, sending money home each month to her mother, sister and 11-year-old son who rely on her to survive. But with the COVID-19 crisis, she has been out of work for more than a month....
More than four out of five people (81 percent) in the global workforce of 3.3 billion are currently affected by full or partial workplace closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some 1.25 billion workers are employed in the sectors identified as being at high risk of...
Unions throughout Morocco are negotiating wage guarantees and other measures to safeguard the livelihoods of the tens of thousands of workers in the country’s hospitality industry—cooks, wait staff, hotel cleaners, tour operators—who have been furloughed or lost their...
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This JustJobs and Solidarity Center report asserts that post-earthquake Nepal is at a unique moment when it can leverage the reconstruction process to protect worker rights and ensure that migration out of the country for work is a choice, not a necessity....
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Although Sri Lanka's labor code sets the minimum wage, the maximum number of work hours per day and work days per week, and establishes rules around overtime and benefits, many employers in Jaffna, the country’s northern province, are flaunting the statutes. The vast...
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...