Solidarity Center Senior Specialist for Migration and Human Trafficking Neha Misra took part in a Facebook Live event today to shine a spotlight on the promotion and protection of the rights of migrant workers. The event, held in advance of the International Migrants...
Search Results
Make People > Profits: UN Special Rapporteur
Millions of workers in the global economy have been disenfranchised from their rights, either tacitly or deliberately by governments, exacerbating “global inequality, poverty, violence and child and forced labor,” says Maina Kiai, United Nations Special Rapporteur on...
Building Alliances to End Gender-Based Violence at Work
Gender-based violence (GBV) is one of the most prevalent human rights violations in the world—and yet not enough is done to prevent it, especially at the workplace. “Without gender equality, we cannot have worker rights, and without worker rights, we cannot have...
Rowena Borja: ‘I Want to Fight for My Co-Workers’
Like many migrant workers, Filipinos seeking domestic work in other countries must pay large fees to labor brokers to get a job--a situation that leads to human trafficking, says Rowena Borja. A domestic worker in Hong Kong originally from the Philippines, Borja is...
Trafficking Report Highlights Uzbekistan Abuses
Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, two countries where forced labor in cotton harvests is rampant, have been downgraded to the lowest ranking in the U.S. State Department’s 2016 Trafficking in Persons Report released this morning. The report also downgraded Myanmar (Burma)...
Share Your Views on Worker Rights with the United Nations
Update: The survey is now available in Spanish and French. La encuesta está disponible en francés y español. L'enquête est disponible en français et espagnol. The United Nations Special Rapporteur is partnering with the Solidarity Center to research a report on the...
UN Consultation on Worker Rights Gathers Global Experts
More than two dozen worker, union and human rights experts from around the world gathered last week in Kenya to discuss some of the most intractable global labor issues: informalization of work, gender inequality, migrant worker rights and the erosion of workers’...
Workers Campaign for Portable Benefits in East Africa
The East African Trade Union Federation (EATUC)—representing national trade union centers in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda—is conducting a regionwide campaign for passage of a social security portability bill through the East African Legislative Assembly...
Pakistan Women MPs to Push for Decent Work in Brick Kilns
The effort to secure decent work in Pakistan’s brick kiln industry took a step forward in recent weeks when 18 women parliamentarians vowed to take up the issue in the Punjab Legislature. The move followed their participation in a discussion organized by the...
Report: Transforming Women’s Work
From domestic workers in New York City to garment workers in Bangladesh, women coming together to organize, demand fair treatment and address gender discrimination is critical to realizing women’s rights and economic justice. A new report from the AFL-CIO, the Rutgers...
Draft Labor Law Must Be Dropped: Cambodia Union Leaders
Union leaders are asking the Cambodia Royal Government and National Assembly to suspend adoption of a pending trade union law because of restrictions it would place on the freedom to form unions, collectively bargain and strike. Following a strategy meeting today...
Africa Union Leaders Share Tactics to Empower Workers
Addressing unemployment and underemployment, especially for young workers, is the most pressing issue for trade unions across Africa, according to participants in an African Labor Leaders Exchange Program sponsored by the Solidarity Center. Speaking at a December 9...
One Man’s Evolution to Understanding Gender Inequality
Nhlanhla Mabizela says he first truly grasped the meaning of gender inequality on a winter day in the dusty streets of Alexandra Township in post-apartheid South Africa. Cutting through an alley surrounded by houses made of iron scrap and plastic sheets, Mabizela and...
Swazi Union Receives 2015 AFL-CIO Human Rights Award
Over the past year, Swazi workers have not been deterred from taking part in union meetings even though the gatherings were repeatedly broken up by police. They turned out in large numbers for the annual May Day rally, although they were threatened with arrest if they...
Speeches
SHAWNA BADER-BLAU, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Speech at the 28th triennial convention of the Office and Professional Employees International (OPEIU) in Las Vegas, Nevada, on June 10, 2019. “On Our Terms: How We Redefine Democracy and Reverse Exploitation through Social...
Let’s Create a Global Civil Rights Movement
With a rousing call to action, Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau urged the more than 200 participants in the final session of the Solidarity Center's Labor Migration: Who Benefits? conference to "exercise our voice for a bigger push for global...
Migrant Workers Empowered by Forming Unions
“Organizing campaigns that are led by migrant workers themselves are making the impossible possible,” says Tefere Gebre, AFL-CIO executive vice president, succinctly summing up the discussion that opened the second day of the conference Labor Migration: Who Benefits?...
Vulnerable Workers Targets of Gender-Based Violence
Participants in Monday’s final session of the Solidarity Center labor migration conference engaged in a lively discussion with panelists in a discussion of migrant workers’ vulnerability to gender-based violence. Lisa McGowan, senior specialist for gender equality,...
Civil Rights & Shared Prosperity for Migrant Workers
Saying that “labor migration takes place in an economic context of massive and growing global economic inequality,” Shawna Bader-Blau, Solidarity Center executive director, helped set the stage for the first day of the August 10–12 event, Labor Migration: Who...