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...
The Solidarity Center works to ensure all workers, such as Bangladesh garment workers, have access to their legal workplace rights. Credit: Solidarity Center/Balmi Chisim
The Solidarity Center works to ensure that all workers have rights protected under international law and have access to effective legal remedies if those rights are violated.
The Solidarity Center works with workers, unions and other organizations around the world to rewrite the rules so workers can form unions and take collective action to promote their rights and be free from exploitation. The Solidarity Center has assisted workers and unions in countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, Guatemala, Myanmar, Thailand and Ukraine to analyze legislation and develop strategies to defeat repressive legislation and promote laws and regulations consistent with international law.
Our work supports novel litigation at the national and regional levels to expand rights to workers and unions. For example, the Solidarity Center has supported constitutional litigation to ensure domestic workers in South Africa have access to the national workers compensation fund, and is working with lawyers in Bangladesh to support workers in challenging the use of false criminal charges to dismiss and silence workers. The Solidarity Center also supports efforts in regional human rights courts to promote the rights of informal economy workers in Africa and to hold governments accountable for anti-union violence in the Americas.
The Solidarity Center also is working to build accountability for multinational firms in global supply chains that remain largely beyond the reach of the law in countries where their suppliers are located and in their home countries. The lack of accountability is a major driver of worker exploitation in supply chains, including wage theft, unsafe workplaces, violence against workers and attacks against unions.
Educating workers on their rights and how to use them in the workplace is also a key component of our work. Through the International Lawyers Assisting Workers Network (ILAW), we are building a legal community and increasing the capacity of lawyers and activists to effectively use domestic, regional and international laws and institutions. The ILAW Network brings together more than 400 lawyers in some 55 countries.
Podcast: Now Imprisoned, Belarus Union Leader Spoke of Hopes for Democracy
In April, at least 18 union leaders were recently arrested in Belarus, where an autocracy has run the country since the fall of the Soviet Union. Among those arrested was Sergey Antusevich, vice president of the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions, who was...
Myanmar Union Activists Assaulted, Detained by Military
Two women unionist activists in Myanmar were assaulted and arrested late last week after the taxi they were traveling in was rammed by a military vehicle in eastern Yangon. According to eyewitnesses at the scene, six soldiers exited a military vehicle after ramming...

Bargaining for Decent Work and Beyond: Transforming Work and Lives Through Collective Bargaining Agreements in the Honduran Maquila Sector
Unions in the Honduran maquila sector bargain to improve work conditions and address gender-based vice at work, and so provide options for those who may migrate to seek jobs, a Solidarity Center report finds. Download in English and Spanish.

The Persistence of Private Power: Sacrificing Rights for Wages (South Africa)
"The Persistence of Private Power: Sacrificing Rights for Wages," a qualitative survey of human rights violations against live-in domestic workers in South Africa, is co-published by IZWI Domestic Workers Alliance—a network of domestic workers in Johannesburg that...

2021 Annual Report
Download here.

Migrant Workers’ Access to Justice for Wage Theft: A Global Study of Promising Initiatives
The report identifies initiatives from around the world that enable migrant workers to obtain redress for wage theft through administrative and judicial mechanisms. These initiatives shift risks and burdens of wage recovery away from workers and onto government and...

Overworked and Underpaid, Sri Lanka’s Garment Workers Left Hanging by a Thread
A survey of garment workers in Sri Lanka, conducted in partnership with Solidarity Center and IndustriALL, found employer opposition and harassment has limited their ability to form unions and address workplace rights violations such as increased workloads and work...

Breaking the Silence: Gender-Based Violence in Nigeria’s World of Work
An alarming 57.5 percent of women workers interviewed across all sectors for this Nigeria Labor Congress (NLC) report say they experienced gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) in the world of work. More than one-third of respondents said that even when...