Bangladesh garment worker and union leader Nazma Akter is among women challenging obstacles to leadership in their unions, their workplaces and their communities.
Founder and president of the AWAJ Foundation and Sommilito Garments Sramik Federation, Nazma says “Women in Bangladesh, especially at the grassroots, are taking the initiative for leadership and we hope it will be more and more.”
In Tunisia’s southern Gafsa region, Naziha Kdimi, a higher education teacher, struggled for years to gain acceptance among her male union peers.
This year, Kdimi was elected assistant general secretary for a regional union body covering the area for the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT)—the first woman to hold an executive position in the region.
In this video clip, Kdimi encourages union women everywhere to never give up the struggle for gender equality.
Her advice to women seeking to change male-dominated cultures that have long inhibited women from exerting leadership: Keep showing up every day. Eventually, the men will accept you. Don’t go away, because then they will have won.
The video featuring Kdimi is part of the Solidarity Center Workers Equality Forum, where working people around the world describe their challenges, successes, and hopes and dreams for a better world for all workers.
Sexual assault is a well-recognized aspect of gender-based violence at work. But as a new Solidarity Center video makes clear, gender-based violence at work may involve bullying, verbal abuse, stalking, threats and much more. (Find out more about the campaign to Stop Gender-Based Violence at Work!)
Released today, the two-minute video highlights the structural foundations of gender-based violence at work, a systemic gendered imbalance between employers and workers that enables employers to get away with unsafe working conditions and other worker abuses. Although gender-based violence is one of the most prevalent human rights violations in the world, not enough is done to prevent it, especially at the workplace.
(Join the campaign to Stop Gender-Based Violence at Work!)
Starting May 28, workers, employers and government officials will debate a proposed International Labor Organization (ILO) convention (regulation) that would address violence and harassment at work.
Workers and their unions are championing its adoption with a strong focus on the gender dimension of violence.
The video ends with a call to action to join the campaign for passage of a gender-based violence at work convention, because “Violence is not part of the job for any of us!”
Some 40 domestic workers from 17 countries across North and South America and the Caribbean shared organizing tactics, hammered out resolutions and participated in Solidarity Center training on gender-based violence at work at a recent conference in São Paulo, Brazil.
A Solidarity Center gender equality training was part of the domestic workers’ conference. Credit: IDWF
The conference is one of a series of regional planning meetings domestic workers around the world are holding in advance of the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF) congress November 16–18 in South Africa. Domestic workers from all regions will bring recommendations to the IDWF Congress. Latin American domestic workers voted to recommend the IDWF adopt resolutions involving safety and health, strengthening leadership of Afro-descendent domestic workers where they are a majority and supporting LGBT domestic workers who face double discrimination on the job.
Delegates also nominated new leadership for the region, Andrea Morales from Nicaragua and Carmen Britez of Argentina, both former domestic workers.
In one of the most powerful moments of the conference, migrant domestic workers and Afro-descendent domestic workers shared their strategies during a panel on racial equality and, in the process, “restored dignity back to themselves and to the work they do,” says Adriana Paz, IDWF Latin America regional coordinator.
“Most domestic workers labor in modern slavery conditions without being paid but instead just provided with board and room—just like in slavery times,” says Paz, who participated in the conference. “Added to this lack of rights and freedoms, Afro-descendant domestic workers face the structural violence inflicted on them because of the intersection of their race, class and gender.”
In Brazil, 70 percent of domestic workers are Afro-descendent as are a majority of domestic workers in Colombia, who also are often internal migrants, moving from rural areas to large cities for employment.
Steps to Ensure Brazil Enforces Domestic Worker Standard
Credit: IDWF
Brazil’s ratification of International Labor Organization Convention (ILO) 189 on domestic workers’ rights earlier this year led to discussions about how Brazilian domestic workers could ensure the government is in compliance with the convention. Domestic workers from countries that have ratified Convention 189 say the first step is to push for creation of employer organizations so domestic workers have a collective employer with whom to negotiate contracts.
Enforcement of domestic workers’ rights is difficult in Brazil because the constitution does not allow authorities to “inspect” private homes, a challenge Argentine domestic workers say they have addressed by sending out mobile vans in neighborhoods where they find employers with domestic workers. From the vans, union staff and labor ministry representatives discuss with employers how to formalize workers and have paperwork ready for employers and specific materials for domestic workers as well.
Conference participants also took part in a Solidarity Center workshop on the upcoming International Labor Conference (ILC), where representatives from labor, employers and governments will negotiate a draft convention addressing gender-based violence at work. Five domestic workers from Latin America will attend the May 28–June 8 ILC, all of whom were active in the international campaign for passage of Convention 189 in 2011.
Domestic workers in the Africa, Asia and European regions held regional conferences earlier this year.
Kalthoum Barkallah, Solidarity Center senior program officer and master trainer in Tunisia, this week received a lifetime achievement award from the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT). The award, the nationwide union’s highest honor, is given to union activists for their dedication to union work and in recognition of their struggle in the defense of workers and human rights.
The UGTT award is the union’s highest honor.
“We are enormously proud of Kalthoum and the great contribution she brings to the labor movement through her incredible dedication and accomplishments,” says Hind Cherrouk, Solidarity Center country program director for the Maghreb region. “Kalthoum’s expertise in nurturing and training new generations of leaders, especially women unionists, has ensured the labor movement in Tunisia and beyond is served by new, skilled union activists.”
Presented by UGTT General Secretary Noureddine Tabboubi, the award reads: “Honoring sister and union activist Kalthoum Barkallah in appreciation for her dedication and perseverance in support for union work.”
In conferring the award, Taboubbi noted Kalthoum’s popularity among the UGTT’s union structures from local to national.
“When I began the struggle for democracy, freedom and the rights of women in 1979, I never for a moment imagined that there would be a day when I would be recognized or honored for my part in realizing these noble objectives,” says Barkallah.
As an activist with the Tunisian General Federation of Railways, Barkallah was first elected as a deputy general secretary in 1983, heading up training within the union. She later was elected deputy general secretary in charge of international relations. In the railways industry, Barkallah was known as the “iron lady” for her determination and struggle to challenge her male colleagues in a male-dominated sector to achieve equality and justice for all.
As an active union leader with the UGTT, Barkallah built on the gender empowerment training she began in the railway sector to reach union members in a variety of industries throughout Tunisia, championing women’s rights there and supporting her sisters beyond its borders.
Barkallah, who in 2006 was elected president of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF)–Arab Women’s committee, also recently received an award from the ITF Women’s Committee for her fight and struggle in support of women workers in the transport sector.
Throughout her decades of service to workers and their unions, Barkallah balanced both work and family duties, raising two sons who each now have their own children.