As the world witnesses some of the greatest challenges to democratic governments since the 1930s, unions offer a strong and essential counter to the trend, according to Cornell University Professor Angela Cornell.
“Many studies show that organized labor has played critical role in developing and defending democracy. The organized working class was the primary carrier of democracy,” Cornell said today at the International Lawyers Assisting Workers Network (ILAW) Conference opening plenary.
More than 130 labor lawyers from 42 countries meeting October 7–9 also focused their final day on developing plans for Network’s coming years.
The Solidarity Center launched the ILAW Network in December 2018 as a global hub for worker rights lawyers to facilitate innovative litigation, help spread the adoption of pro-worker legislation and defeat anti-worker laws.
Cornell listed the ways in which unions fuel democracy, including by providing a counterviling role to corporate power.
Further, said Cornell, “new research on the role of unions and in building solidarity among their members demonstrates the ways in which unions can bridge racial and national divides. Union members are less likely to support extreme views.”
Economic inequality is a destabiizing influence in most countries, Cornell said, and unions decrease inequality.
“Unions have been instrumental in the passsage of labor protections and the social safety net, including social security, minimum wage and overtime, workplace heath and safety and medical leave, among others.”
Unions Build Democracy in Latin America, Africa
Ken Roberts, a professor at Cornell University and book contributor, overviewed how unions have been bulwarks of democracy throughout Latin America.
“Labor has played a central role in trying to restore citizenship rights,” said Roberts. Since the 1960s–1980s, when unions suffered setbacks during military dictatorships and neoliberal reforms that prioritized the interests of the wealthy over working people, the key challenge has been to build broad coalitions, he said.
ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow
By joining with feminist movements, indigineous communities and territorially-based urban community networks, unions have created strong and successful coaltions. Since late 1990s as part of social pushback against neoliberal model, 14 countries have elected progressive governments and labor has been an important part of moving this unprecedented number of elections, he said.
Most recently, unions were part of successful coalitions that elected progressive governments in Honduras and Colombia and are constructing broad democratic fronts against new challenges from ethnonationalist and extreme conservative groups.
In Africa, “more often than not, unions were the only force fighting decolonization,” said Evance Kalula, chair of International Labor Organization (ILO) Committee on Freedom of Association and emeritus prof of law at the University of Capetown. “Formal and informal collaboration between unions as agents of change and nationalist movements.”
Kalula and co-author Chanda Chungu, contributed the chapter on “African Perspectives on Labor Rights as Enhancers of Democratic Governance.”
Julia Lopez Lopez, a professor at the University of Barcelona, described how unions are standing up to corporations that are using the new model of app-based work to exploit transportaton workers.
“The case of transport sector is one of the cases that show unions are trying to create new strategies against market intervention against multinational efforts to liberalize labor rights,” she said.
Lopez recently participated in research projects on precarious work and social rights led by the Working Lives Research Institute.
Closing the Conference, Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), overviewed the challenges facing workers and their advocates and pointed to recent legal successes as well, including an agreement that the ITUC and ILO achieved with the Qatar government that ensures more rights for migrant workers, including the freedom to leave their jobs and seek alternative employment.
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 a guest on The Solidarity Center Podcast in 2021. On the show, re-aired here, Antusevich spoke passionately about how Belarusian workers took to the streets to protest fraudulent elections in 2020 that meant the country’s autocrat would continue in power. ”
Statement by the NED Family: The National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute, the Center for International Private Enterprise, and the Solidarity Center:
Vladimir Putin’s illegal and unjustified attack on a sovereign, free Ukraine is a watershed moment in the struggle for human freedom. To meet this moment, we are determined to support democracy activists on the frontline with the same sense of urgency they bring to their own national struggle. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its four core partners—the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) and the Solidarity Center—stand in support and solidarity with our Ukrainian grantees, partners, staff, and their loved ones in Ukraine.
Since gaining independence in 1991, the people of Ukraine have time and again demonstrated their overwhelming desire to live in a free and democratic nation. We have been inspired as millions of Ukrainians have worked tirelessly and optimistically to build democratic institutions and practices in their country. Ukraine’s progress and commitment to this goal is what threatens and provokes Vladimir Putin. A democratic example on Russia’s border and a people with a shared culture and history who choose their own leaders, hold them accountable, and display a clear desire to join the community of democratic nations, represent an existential threat to Putin’s more than two-decade rule in Moscow and his ambition to dominate Russia’s neighbors.
Ukraine today is the epicenter of the fight for freedom in the world. The courage of the Ukrainian people—their willingness to risk everything to confront Russian aggression and defend their homeland—is an inspiration. They are a powerful example to all those worldwide who are joined in the struggle against authoritarian regimes that deprive free peoples of their basic rights and liberties, steal national wealth, attack and imprison political opponents, and silence independent media.
So too are the thousands of Russians and Belarusians who have risked arrest or worse to protest this criminal act of aggression. On Sunday, February 27, 2022, more than 10,000 people visited the memorial near the Kremlin marking the spot where Putin’s democratic rival, Boris Nemtsov, was assassinated seven years earlier. This is what Putin, and all dictators fear—ordinary citizens who would like to choose their leaders in free and fair elections and hold those leaders to account.
As the Ukrainian people struggle to preserve their sovereignty, their democracy, and their hopeful future, it is time for all those worldwide who live in freedom to rally to the cause of a free Ukraine.
Putin’s attack on Ukraine comes at a moment when democratic institutions are being systematically undermined across the globe and authoritarian regimes are growing in number and strength. Alert to a great danger, democratic societies should make every effort to secure the freedoms we cherish, the institutions we have built, and the values we have affirmed, to promote a more secure, just, and peaceful world.
Ukraine’s defense should become the valiant first chapter of a global democratic revival. In this task, we are committed to supporting a great coalition of courageous and creative political leaders, civic activists, independent journalists, labor organizers, entrepreneurs, and ordinary citizens who will lead the way.
As Myanmar’s military junta marks the first year of its overthrow of the country’s democratically elected government February 1, delegates to a national unity assembly seeking to establish civilian control and return the country to democracy elected a five-member presidium that includes union leader Phyo Sandar Soe.
Nearly 400 delegates gathered virtually for the First People’s Assembly of the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC), where they elected Sandar, assistant general secretary of the Confederation of Trade Unions Myanmar (CTUM). She is the only woman and is the youngest person elected to the presidium.
Delegates to the January 27–29 assembly included a broad spectrum of political parties, civil society organizations, ethnic states and organizations calling for unity and support for the “Spring Revolution.”
In a statement, the assembly strongly condemned “the actions of the terrorist military junta that includes the widespread and deliberate arrest, torture and murder of innocent people … breaching international human rights laws which includes Geneva Conventions, crimes against humanity and war crimes and genocide.”
Workers–women in particular–took an early lead in the protests against the Myanmar coup, with the country’s 450,000 garment workers especially active. Credit: CTUM
An estimated 1,500 people have been killed since the military coup, and nearly 12,000 people imprisoned, most tortured. The military has especially targeted union leaders, arresting dozens, and many have fled the country or are in hiding. Workers–women in particular–took an early lead in the protests, with the country’s 450,000 garment workers especially active in organizing civil disobedience actions and shutting down factories. They have asked international corporate fashion brands to cease doing business in Myanmar until democracy is restored.
Workers today staged a silent strike across the country, to mark the anniversary in defiance of military brutality.
The assembly also is calling for the release of all political prisoners and protesters, and is urging the international community to recognize the National Unity Government (NUG) as the country’s only legitimate government. The NUG includes Aung San Suu Kyi, who headed Myanmar’s government before the coup and who has been arrested and jailed by the military junta.
“That’s why I want to tell our brothers and sisters to endure this duration because we have very high motivation to fight back against the junta.” Sandar, a former garment worker, spoke from a safe house with podcast host and Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau.
Workers across the country are struggling to support themselves, as some 1.6 million jobs were lost in Myanmar in 2021, with women workers hit especially hard. Working hours are estimated to have decreased 18 percent in 2021 relative to 2020, equivalent to the working time of at least 3.1 million full-time workers. Nearly 800,000 people have been displaced and an estimated 14.4 million people, including 5 million children, are in need of humanitarian assistance.
Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), and Thomas Andrews, UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar spoke to delegates to convey their support.
‘Investing in Myanmar Means Fuels Military Brutality’
Union leaders in Myanmar have been urging international corporations to pull support from the government. “If you invest in Myanmar, your investment money will go to the military regime,” Sandar said on the Solidarity Center Podcast. “And then the military regime, with your money, they will keep controlling the country and they will buy guns and weapons, and then they will kill us.” Unions and other civil society organizations around the world, including the Solidarity Center, have backed a statement urging international brands not to invest in Myanmar.
“There’s no excuse for anyone who does business with this regime, and there’s no excuse for backing the bloodshed with weapons,” Burrow said on the anniversary of the coup. “That’s why we are calling on the UN Security Council to enforce an arms embargo on Myanmar and enforce the General Assembly’s resolution 75/287 with the member states.”
Together with the United Kingdom and Canada, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on January 31 announced financial sanctions against seven individuals and two entities connected to Myanmar’s military regime. The action follows similar U.S. sanctions imposed last year.
Despite the hardships, union activists and other NUCC members are standing up for the restoration of democracy and fundamental human rights, with the NUCC vowing to “continue the fight for the elimination of all forms of dictatorship including military dictatorship,” and build “a federal democracy union which fully guarantees democracy, national equality and self-determination with collective leadership and collective strength.”
Democracy enables workers and their unions to flourish, and as it is increasingly threatened around the world, democracy also depends on working people and their organizations to keep it vibrant, according to speakers at the high-level event, “Worker Organizations’ Vital Role in Democracy.” (Watch for the full recorded session here.)
“We stand with all workers everywhere who are on the front lines of democracy”—AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. Credit: Solidarity Center
“Threats to democracy go hand-in-hand with threats to workers’ right to form unions,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, speaking at the November 7 virtual forum. “We stand with all workers everywhere who are on the front lines of democracy in their countries and their workplaces.”
The forum, an official side event of the December 9-10 U.S. Summit for Democracy, brought together union leaders, labor ministers and philanthropic organizations from around the world to highlight the role of worker voice and worker rights as fundamental components of democracy and spur global action in support of freedom of association and collective bargaining.
“Worker Organizations’ Vital Role in Democracy” built on recommendations that emerged from four listening sessions with 250 U.S. government officials and labor leaders from Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe and the Middle East and North Africa. The Solidarity Center, International Trade Union Organization (ITUC) and the AFL-CIO assisted in organizing the sessions.
“The freedom to form unions is a human right,” said U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, opening the event. “For global democracy to thrive, the global community must support workers right to independent organizing and bargaining.” In announcing the launch of the Multilateral Partnership for Organizing, Worker Empowerment and Rights (M-POWER) initiative, a year-long efforts by governments, unions and the private sector, Walsh said its goals include extending labor law coverage and strengthening unions.
“When we say workers need a seat at the table, we mean it.”
Democracy Under Threat: The Voice of Workers
During a session exploring worker rights, ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow highlighted how economic inequalities—such as the 60 percent of the world’s workers who survive through informal jobs with no rights and no protections—threaten democracy. The ITUC and global labor movement are championing a new social contract, one that includes “Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs,” said Burrow.
It’s time to return to full employment” with rights and protections for all workers, she said, with a new social contract that includes equality and inclusion for all workers, a push reiterated by International Labor Organization Director General Guy Ryder.
Josua Mata at SENTRO says union members are standing up to brutal assaults on democracy and freedom of association. Credit: Solidarity Center
From the Philippines, Josua Mata, general secretary of the United and Progressive Workers Center (SENTRO), described a bleak environment for workers and their unions, with more than 50 union members killed since 2016 and ongoing redtagging (branding and accusing individuals and/or organizations of being terrorists), illegal firing of union activists and anti-terrorism laws directed at stifling freedom to form unions and bargain.
“Any claim that there is freedom of association in Philippines is a lie,” said Mata. Despite the dangers, he and other union activist there are determined to persist in the struggle for democracy.
“All of this has not stopped us from continuing to do what needs to be done.”
A union leader from Brazil shared her struggle with state corruption. Yet, like Mata, Carmen Foro, general secretary of the Central Union of Workers (CUT) vowed to continue the fight for transparent and free government to enable workers to freely exercise their rights.
“Unions are indispensable to democracy,” said Foro.
In a rallying cry to workers in the United States and around the world, Randi Weingarten, president of the U.S.-based American Federation of Teachers (AFT) said workers must see the struggle to engender and preserve democracy “the same as we would fight for a collective bargaining contract. The fight for democracy is the same as the fight for wages, the fight for dignity.”
Said Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau: “No social or political progress happens by magic. Change is pushed by people working collectively. And legitimacy of the government comes from the people.”
Launching a Global Year of Action
Partners in the M-POWER initiative will come together in a year to evaluate progress and recommit to improving worker rights worldwide. Announcing a $100 million pledge by philanthropic organizations through Funders Organized for Rights in the Global Economy (FORGE), Open Society Foundation Executive Director Thomas Periello said the commitment is an important statement for philanthropy to do its part keep worker rights and justice central to its work around the world.”
“As we see rise of threat of authoritarianism around the world, democracies need to deliver, and a huge part of that is free unions,” he said.
Government officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the State Department and Labor Department’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) shared their support of M-POWER’s goals and highlighted the U.S. government’s significant financial commitment to program.
“Governments have a foundational role in providing an enabling role for enabling free and independent unions to thrive,” said Thea Lee, ILAB deputy undersecretary.
Labor ministers from Argentina, Germany, Mexico and Norway also shared how partnerships among union, government and private sector in their countries are enabling workers to reskill and upskill, transfer to jobs in renewable energy and ensure worker rights throughout. “To protect the rights of workers, the first thing we need is a development model to have rights at center,” said Argentina’s Minister of Labor, Employment and Social Security Claudio Moroni.
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“Many studies show that organized labor has played critical role in developing and defending democracy. The organized working class was the primary carrier of democracy,” Cornell said today at the International Lawyers Assisting Workers Network (ILAW) Conference opening plenary.
Nearly 400 delegates 
