More than 140 labor lawyers from 42 countries are gathering in Brussels October 6–9 for the second global conference of the International Lawyers Assisting Workers (ILAW) Network, where they will exchange legal strategies for the promotion and defense of the rights and interests of workers and trade unions, explore coalitions with allies in the feminist, environmental and human rights movements and plan the network’s strategic goals for the next two years.
Participants at the ILAW Network Global Conference also will evaluate progress since the first ILAW Conference in 2019, where members set an ambitious agenda for advocacy, litigation and education. Speakers include Clément Voule, Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association for the United Nations and UNI Global Union General Secretary Christy Hoffman.
Benson Upah, an ILAW Advisory Board member and coordinator in Nigeria, says one of the network’s accomplishments since the last conference is building membership—from some 350 members to more than 800 members in dozens of countries. The ILAW Network also has hired regional coordinators in Africa, the Americas, Asia and East Europe/Central Asia, fulfilling one of the members’ key recommendations at the first conference.
“The growth of the ILAW Network worldwide represents a significant step toward improving worker rights in areas of strategic litigation, bolstering labor legislation and holding governments accountable to their obligations under international labor standards,” says Solidarity Center Rule of Law Director and ILAW Network Chair Jeffrey Vogt. “ILAW lawyers proactively represent workers and unions and are a key part of workers’ struggles for rights, dignity and justice on the job.”
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.
Far-Reaching Support for Worker Rights
ILAW litigation supporting worker rights is both broad and finely targeted. One of the network’s key recent victories, says Mónica Tepfer, an ILAW Board member, is the January 2022 decision by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that affirmed workers’ right to strike in Guatemala. The ILAW Network filed a 40-page amicus brief successfully arguing that a series of court rulings denying workers’ right to strike if two-thirds vote to do so violated the country’s Labor Code.
ILAW assisted the Georgian Trade Union Confederation in developing a report, “The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Women’s Labor Rights,” which included recommendations that ILAW and Georgian trade unions are now advocating for at the national level to improve worker rights protections for women.
In Uganda, ILAW provided legal support for more than 170 street vendors who were arrested following eviction orders and charged with offenses such as selling goods without a license and public nuisance. ILAW worked in collaboration with unions organizing in the informal economy and with partners such as WIEGO, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and StreetNet International.
ILAW from the beginning has worked closely with partners globally. “The collaboration between the ILAW Network and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)—a founding member and board member of ILAW—provides ITUC affiliates the best legal advice and assistance to advance labor right and I expect that that collaboration to continue and to deepen,” says Paapa Danquah, ILAW Board member and ITUC Legal Director.
A Push for Platform Worker Rights
Along with a focus on workers in the informal economy such as street vendors, ILAW has engaged in extensive research and legal support on behalf of app-based workers. For instance in Nigeria, ILAW backed litigation advancing the rights of drivers hired through digital platforms such as Uber and Bolt. The drivers are misclassified as independent contractors rather than as employees and so do not receive paid sick leave, compensation for workplace injuries or other basic protections provided by the country’s labor laws.
ILAW also researched gig workers’ labor rights protection in Central Asia, looking into the digital platform markets and identifying drivers’ working conditions. In addition, ILAW produced to the report, “Taken for a Ride: Litigating the Digital Platform Model,” in response to requests from ILAW Network members for comparative analysis on litigation against digital platform companies around the world. The network also compiled the Database on Standards and Decisions on Digital Platform Work in Latin America that includes draft laws, legislation and decisions regarding digital platform work.
In July, the ILAW Network launched the Litigation Fund to provide modest financial assistance to promote or defend the rights and interests of workers and unions. Supported by the Open Society Foundations, the fund currently is supporting litigation in Nepal, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
Additional ILAW network accomplishments since the 2019 conference include:
Setting up an online member-accessible database with expert and member-sourced recommended legislative or union contract provisions addressing workers’ key issues.
Publishing the Global Labour Rights Reporter, a law journal offering a forum for labor and employment law practitioners globally, including ILAW Network members, to grapple with the legal and practical issues that directly affect workers and their organizations.
Launching a webinar series to provide members learning opportunities on topics such as workers’ rights on digital platforms, promotion of International Labor Organization Convention 190 to end gender-based violence at work, and migrant workers’ rights.
Since the last ILAW conference, “the visibility of the Network has been significantly raised among the labor rights lawyers, scholars and others interested in the labor rights related issues,” says Raisa Liparteliani, ILAW Network board member. “In my opinion the periodic review, the Global Labour Rights Reporter (GLRR) positively affected to this process.”
The 2022 conference offers members a renewed opportunity to shape the coming years of the network and strategize on addressing emerging issues such as impacts of climate change on labor, the future of work, the emergence of artificial intelligence in managing workers and the new challenges in the changing workplace.
Stop back here for regular coverage of ILAW Network Global Conference and follow live updates on Twitter @ILAW_Network.
Public employees across Tunisia won a 5 percent wage increase over three years plus financial benefits through revisions of the tax code, following a general strike and weeks of difficult negotiations, according to the Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT). The agreement also increases the guaranteed minimum wage by 7 percent.
“Our objective through this agreement is to establish social peace and to ease the tense social climate, in view of the very difficult social situation and the deterioration of purchasing power,” UGTT General Secretary Noureddine Taboubi told Agence France Press.
The agreement restores key union rights by guaranteeing the right to free collective bargaining negotiations. UGTT had called on the government to adhere to a December 2021 agreement in which it will negotiate with unions on policies affecting workers.
Workers protested deteriorating economic conditions and government efforts to freeze public employee wages, part of the government’s attempts to secure financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF recently indicated the loan is expected to be between $2 billion and $4 billion over three years.
Solidarity Center works closely with the UGTT which, with its nearly 1 million members, continues to fight for their democratic freedoms in difficult conditions as workers join together and negotiate collectively over their pay, working conditions and workplace decisions.
A new Labor Center in Mexico will advise workers about their rights and how to mobilize and organize unions and collectively bargain. The Labor Center, at the Autonomous University of Querétaro in central Mexico, is supported by the Solidarity Center and the UCLA Labor Center.
“The aim is to strengthen and promote the full recognition of labor rights, freedom of association and organization, and the democratic participation of workers through research, linkage and accompaniment,” said Labor Center Director Dr. Javier Salinas García. Salinas spoke at a recent Solidarity Center event in Mexico to announce the opening.
The Labor Center comes three years after Mexico’s government announced a series of comprehensive labor reforms to establish a democratic unionization process, address corruption in the labor adjudication system and eradicate employer protection (“charro”) unions prevalent in the country.
The Labor Center is “a way to respond to the needs of the situation,” said Beatriz García, Solidarity Center Mexico deputy program director.
“I think we all agree that Mexico is going through a historic moment. The labor reform responds to the demands that have been the objectives of the struggle of many workers for years, for decades, and reflects some positive practices of the independent unions,” she said.
The event featured a panel of independent union members and leaders who discussed the future of the labor movement in Mexico in the wake of historic labor law reforms.
Panelists explored the role that democratic and independent trade unions in promoting labor reform implementation in Mexico three years after the 2019 Labor Reform and negotiations of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (UMSCA/T-MEC).
Speakers shared how they are using the tools of labor reform to organize on their worksites.
“We are the delegates, and we call our colleagues to share information about the Union League,” said Sonia Cristina García Bernal. “We have helped colleagues who were told they were going to be fired without severance pay. We have been able to get them severance pay. We have been able to get them rehired.”
“After these three years, the tool that we use the most is fast response mechanisms,” said Imelda Guadalupe Jiménez Méndez. “This has been a very important tool.”
In addition to Beatriz García, speakers included: Imelda Guadalupe Jiménez Méndez, Secretary for Political Affairs, the Miners Union (Los Mineros); Julieta Mónica Morales, General Secretary, Mexican Workers’ Union League (Liga Obrera Mexicana); Rita Guadalupe Lozano Tristán, Mexican Workers’ Union League (Liga Obrera Mexicana); Alejandra Morales, General Secretary, Independent Union of National Workers in the Automotive Industry; and Sonia Cristina García Bernal, Special Delegate, Mexican Workers’ Union League (Liga Obrera Mexicana).
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 the taxi and assaulted the unionists before loading them and the taxi driver into their vehicle and driving away.
Along with 18 others, the two union activists had participated in a march to protest the ongoing assault on civic freedoms by the military junta, which seized power from the elected government in February 2021. The Confederation of Trade Unions Myanmar (CTUM), the Myanmar Labor Alliance (MLA) and the Industrial Workers Federation of Myanmar (IWFM) organized the protest. (Support Myanmar workers under attack here.)
Khaing Thinzar, CTUM communications director, and Ei Phyu Phyu Myint, a member of the Glory Fashion Factory Union, were arrested and taken to an interrogation center in Shwepyithar, according to CTUM. Under the junta, physical torture, including sexual assault, is widespread weapon against dissent.
Thousands of people have been killed and many more imprisoned since the coup. The military has especially targeted union leaders, arresting dozens, and many have fled the country or are in hiding. The military has pledged to “annihilate” those who oppose the regime.
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 multinational fashion brands to cease doing business in Myanmar until democracy is restored.
Since the coup, workers have risked their lives and livelihoods to stand up for a return to democratic governance.
“We are facing a bloody crackdown, but all people protect each other,” says CTUM Assistant General Secretary Phyo Sandar Soe.
A community that makes its livelihood from the Amazon is standing up to the Brazilian government that, without consulting the people most affected, is on the verge of undertaking a blasting and dredging project along a river waterway that would destroy their livelihoods.
On this episode of The Solidarity Center Podcast, Carmen Foro, a rural activist and secretary-general of the Central Union of Workers in Brazil (CUT), describes how the community where she was born is demanding the government honor international treaties respecting Indigenous and Tribal People’s right to safeguard and manage the natural resources on their lands.
“We know that if this hydro way is constructed, then it will bring with it agribusiness interests, monoculture, land conflicts, pollution, a lack of respect for the populations who live there,” Foro says.
“Unchecked greed—by governments and corporations—has fueled environmental destruction and climate change, worsened inequality and eroded worker rights,” says podcast host and Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau.
Foro describes how a diverse coalition that includes representatives from the Quilombolo community, fishers, family farmers, youth, women and a range of grassroots groups formed the Caravan in Defense of the Tocantins River to raise awareness about the negative impacts of the waterway construction.
“We want public policies to preserve the river. And we believe this is the democratic way to build and preserve our rights. This is the way to ensure our future and our life.”
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