In Malaysia, up to 40 percent of workers are migrants from other countries. Over in Bangladesh, more than 600,000 workers migrate each year for jobs, and at least 5 million Bangladeshis currently work in other countries. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries on...
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Swazi Human Rights Leaders Released from Prison
Imprisoned Swazi human rights leader Mario Masuku and student activist Maxwell Dlamini were granted bail today by the Supreme Court of Swaziland, according to the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA). The two were charged with terrorism and jailed in May 2014...
Rana Plaza 2 Years Later: Garment Workers under Siege
In the initial months after the Rana Plaza collapse on April 24, 2013, a preventable catastrophe that killed more than 1,130 Bangladesh garment workers and injured thousands more, global outrage spurred much-needed changes. Dozens of garment factories were closed for...
Fearing Police Action, Swaziland Workers Cancel Rally
Swaziland’s union movement cancelled a planned rally over the weekend after concerns the police would break up the gathering as they have multiple times in the past several weeks. In February and March, large numbers of police disbanded meetings of the Trade Union...
Bangladesh Garment Workers Offer Steps to Boost Rights
After workers form a union in Bangladesh’s garment sector, the government often refuses to register the new union for arbitrary or unfair reasons, said trade union leaders and workers Tuesday at a high-level forum organized by the Solidarity Center in Dhaka, the...
How Much Progress for Women in Past 20 Years?
As more than 8,500 union members and other civil society activists gather at the United Nations in New York for the Commission on the Status of Women meeting, new research shows women have made some gains in the two decades since the landmark global meeting on women...
Two Years after Fatal Tazreen Fire, Life Worse for Survivors
November 24 marks the two-year anniversary of the deadly fire at Tazreen Fashions Ltd. in Bangladesh that killed 112 garment workers. Since then, at least 30 garment workers have died in factory fires and 844 have been injured in 68 incidents, according to data...
Iraq Electricity Crisis Illustrates Need for World Bank Labor Safeguards
[Read the full report in English and in Arabic.] The Word Bank released a draft labor safeguard in July 2014. After consultations, a revised version will be released in 2015. The global labor movement and the International Labor Organization (ILO) are concerned about...
Bangladesh: Another Violent Attack on Garment Workers
A garment union leader and her husband were brutally attacked in late August, marking the latest incident of apparent factory-sponsored violence against workers attempting to exercise their right to freedom of association and to just, safe jobs in Bangladesh’s garment...
Bangladesh: New Garment Organizers Build Skills at Training
CHITTAGONG, BANGLADESH—In this coastal city of 6.5 million people, the second center of garment production in Bangladesh after the capital, Dhaka, a re-energized labor movement is making real progress in organizing workers. At a Solidarity Center training program for...
Zimbabwe Women Workers Key to Making Workplace Rights a Reality
Zimbabwe women workers are key to ensuring the implementation of workplace rights established by the country’s new constitution, says Fiona Magaya, coordinator of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) Gender Department. The constitution, ratified in 2013, also...
Bahrain’s Sad Anniversary: Three Years of Worker Repression
Three years after the people of Bahrain stood up for a more participatory government, the crackdown on dissent and rampant discrimination in the workplace continues. Hundreds of workers—including teachers, doctors, nurses and journalists who were doing their jobs when...
World Day for Decent Work: Migrant Workers Often Exploited
At age 22, N. Naga Durga Bhavani left her small village in India for Bahrain, where she hoped a job as a domestic worker would help pay for her young daughter’s heart surgery. But when she arrived, after paying labor recruiters the equivalent of nearly two months’...
Plenary Conclusions Panel: What Did We Learn/Where Do We Go From Here?
Plenary Conclusions Panel: What Did We Learn/Where Do We Go From Here? Moderator Shawna Bader-Blau, Executive Director, Solidarity Center Panelists • Dorothy Sue Cobble, Distinguished Professor, Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations and the Department...
Workshop Women Workers Organizing: Examples from India, Brazil and Liberia
Workshop Women Workers Organizing: Examples from India, Brazil and Liberia Panelists • Geeta Koshti, Coordinator, Legal Department, Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), India • Sonia Maria Dias, Ph.D, Sector Specialist, WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment:...
Workshop – Brazil’s Integrated Education and Solidarity Economy: Opening Pathways to Income and Citizenship
Workshop Brazil’s Integrated Education and Solidarity Economy: Opening Pathways to Income and Citizenship Participants • Ruth Needleman, Professor Emerita, Labor Studies Program, Indiana University, USA • Eunice Maria Dias Wolf, Secretary of Social Development, City...
Plenary – Women Worker Rights in Agriculture: The Reality, Challenges and Opportunities
Plenary Women Worker Rights in Agriculture: The Reality, Challenges and Opportunities Panelists • Rosa Julia Perez Aguilar, Secretary of Women’s, Child and Adolescent Affairs, Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Empresa Camposal, Peru • Iris Munguía, Coordinator, Latin...
Gender Equality: The Unfinished Business of the Labor Movement
Women at every level are “moving the labor movement in new directions” and “inventing new kinds of worker organizations and new ways of being a trade unionist,” says labor historian Dorothy Sue Cobble. Cobble, distinguished professor of history and labor studies at...
Afro-Colombians Fighting against Discrimination at Work
Afro-Colombians are far likelier than other Colombian workers to earn less than the minimum wage and to be employed in jobs where they cannot form unions to improve their working conditions. And all of this exclusion “has a strong current of racial discrimination...
Working Women Empowered: Making Democracy in Tunisia
In December 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi, a 23-year-old market vendor in Tunisia, self-immolated to protest deep-seated government corruption that made it impossible for him to earn a living. Following his desperate action, Tunisian women helped spur protests and end...