Labor Migration

labor migration, Solidarity Center, worker rights

The Solidarity Center strives for rights for people on the move by ensuring migrant workers are fully able to exercise their workplace, social, economic and democratic rights. Solidarity Center/Jeanne Hallacy

Labor migration feeds the global economy. Hundreds of millions of migrant workers worldwide generate billions of dollars in global remittances. They are domestic workers, construction and agricultural workers, factory and service workers, teachers and professionals. Migrant workers often travel long distances due to a lack of decent work at home to support their families and build a better life. They frequently are denied the most basic human rights. For instance, most destination countries deny migrant workers the right to form unions, and explicitly exclude them from labor law protections, and women migrant workers are often subject to gender-based violence and harassment in their workplaces.

The Solidarity Center strives for worker rights for people on the move by ensuring migrant worker rights are a key part of the labor movement. We cultivate an understanding of how exploitative labor migration management schemes are a widespread means by which to undercut worker wages, create precarious work and pit workers against each other. And, in addressing these structural ills, we emphasize a response that understands the intersectionalities and identities that make migrant workers especially vulnerable. Our goal is to ensure that migrant workers are fully able to exercise their workplace rights, as well as their social, economic and democratic rights.

We also focus on the creation of decent work in home countries so workers can migrate by choice and not due to economic coercion. We recognize that migration is not caused by a single factor that “pushes” workers to migrate. In doing so, we bring our unique worker rights voice more broadly by emphasizing that everyone deserves dignity at work regardless of status—climate migrants, economic migrants and conflict refugees. We work to achieve this through programs that focus on union organizing and collective bargaining, policy advocacy, access to justice, safe migration and, more broadly, the ability to exercise fundamental freedoms as democratic participants.


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migration, migrant workers, Freedoms on the Move report, Solidarity Center,, CIVICUS

Freedoms on the Move, a 2019 report by Solidarity Center and CIVICUS, is an urgent call to action for unions and other civil society groups to include migrant workers and refugees in advancing civic rights.

Brazil: Improving Labor Rights and Conditions for Migrant Workers

Solidarity Center
Solidarity Center
Brazil: Improving Labor Rights and Conditions for Migrant Workers
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Experts Share Strategies for Stopping Wage Theft of Migrant Workers

A significant number of migrant workers worldwide are not paid for work performed, and legal remedies to recover them are few. But new policies have proven effective in ensuring migrant workers are treated fairly, a global panel of experts said yesterday. “Paying...

Polish Federation Safeguards Ukrainian Migrant Worker Rights

A far-reaching project by Poland’s largest union federation is providing comprehensive assistance to Ukrainian refugees to ensure they have fundamental rights on the job as they take on new employment in the country. “When the war in Ukraine broke out and refugees...
Brazil: Improving Labor Rights and Conditions for Migrant Workers

Brazil: Improving Labor Rights and Conditions for Migrant Workers

Solidarity Center
Solidarity Center
Brazil: Improving Labor Rights and Conditions for Migrant Workers



Loading





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Experts Share Strategies for Stopping Wage Theft of Migrant Workers

Experts Share Strategies for Stopping Wage Theft of Migrant Workers

A significant number of migrant workers worldwide are not paid for work performed, and legal remedies to recover them are few. But new policies have proven effective in ensuring migrant workers are treated fairly, a global panel of experts said yesterday. “Paying...

Polish Federation Safeguards Ukrainian Migrant Worker Rights

Polish Federation Safeguards Ukrainian Migrant Worker Rights

A far-reaching project by Poland’s largest union federation is providing comprehensive assistance to Ukrainian refugees to ensure they have fundamental rights on the job as they take on new employment in the country. “When the war in Ukraine broke out and refugees...

2023 Annual Report

2023 Annual Report

In 2023, the Solidarity Center supported workers as they took on exploitative multinational companies and robot algorithms, demanded their governments tackle social ills and deliver on promises, and fought for justice in environments increasingly dangerous to those...

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In Their Own Words: Workers Address Gender-Based Violence & Harassment in South Africa’s Garment Factories and Clothing Retail Stores

In Their Own Words: Workers Address Gender-Based Violence & Harassment in South Africa’s Garment Factories and Clothing Retail Stores

In South Africa, 98 percent of women garment and retail workers surveyed in 2022 said they had experienced one or more forms of gender-based violence or harassment, including physical abuse, unwanted sexual advances, psychological abuse, bullying and rape. To better...

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