Solidarity Center

Delivery drivers and other app-based workers often struggle to improve their difficult, and even dangerous, working conditions. In the final episode of My Boss Is a Robot, two veteran union organizers offer insights and strategies that gig workers can use to win their rights on the job–from the nuts and bolts of nurturing leaders and tapping into social media to connect with each other, to taking...

When a worker dies on the job, shouldn’t their families receive some compensation from the company? App-based delivery drivers and other gig workers don’t. Despite unfair working conditions, many gig workers need to be convinced to join together to get the basic benefits granted to employees in traditional jobs. On this episode of My Boss Is a Robot, union organizers in the Philippines talk about...

Drivers delivering your pizza are being paid by an algorithm–and the longer they work, the less they are paid. On this episode of My Boss Is a Robot, experts discuss whether we are heading toward a potential future where job autonomy and fair compensation become obsolete. Episode summary

Way back when factories were the new thing, there were no rules to stop the big industrialists from paying starvation wages and putting workers’ lives in danger in fire-prone buildings. Today, those out-of-control bosses have been replaced by apps. If apps miscalculate and send drivers in the wrong direction, or lower wages for drivers stuck in traffic, it’s the driver who loses wages, or is even...

. For app-based workers like delivery drivers, the “free” in freelancer comes at a high cost. The second episode of the Solidarity Center Podcast series, My Boss Is a Robot, explores their battle for fair treatment as they seek to be recognized by companies like Uber and Deliveroo as the employees they really are. Episode summary

. If you work seven days a week, 12 hours a day and don’t make enough money to pay the bills, you can talk to your boss, right? Not if your boss is an app. Find out the global impact of app-controlled working conditions on “My Boss Is a Robot,” the new Solidarity Center Podcast series that launches with a deep dive into the realities of being a food delivery driver in Colombia. Episode Summary

  An unprecedented, binding, worker-centered program designed to comprehensively address rampant gender-based violence and harassment in several garment factories in Lesotho is succeeding in creating a safe and dignified workplace in Lesotho, attendees of a high-level summit in the southern African country were told last week. The July 27 summit, “Eradicating Gender-Based Violence and Harassment a...

  A garment union leader in Bangladesh and four garment union leaders in Honduras were killed over the weekend, murders the Solidarity Center and global union and human rights organizations are strongly condemning, and which they say highlight the need for employers and governments in every country to ensure workers can safely exercise their basic rights to form and join unions. “The perpetrators...

  After a coalition of unions and human rights organizations successfully campaigned for Nigeria’s government to ratify a global treaty on violence and harassment in the world of work, including gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH), they knew that was just a first step toward ensuring violence-free workplaces in the country. Now, the hard work begins to implement the protections in Internat...

  Recognizing that increased numbers help unions better advocate for worker rights and negotiate wages and working conditions with Kyrgyzstan’s employers and government, 28 union activists joined the Solidarity Center’s Organizing School, a four-part program that began in March. The school drew participants from  construction, informal trading, public service, taxi and textile sectors, many of […]

  A quarter century since joining the fight for worker rights in Mexico, the Solidarity Center celebrated the progress made amid reflections on the historic moment workers and their allies face in the country.  “The most important and promising independent union organizing in the world is happening right here, right now in Mexico,” Shawna Bader-Blau, […]

  A milestone convening in Tashkent last week brought together stakeholders from Kazakhstan,  Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan government ministries and agencies, non-governmental and civil society sectors, and international organizations as a first step in developing a joint action plan to combat forced labor and advance worker rights in the region. Worldwide, 28 million people were reportedly […]

  The Nigerian working group of a campaign led by the Organization of Trade Unions of West Africa (OTUWA) is collaborating on a regional campaign demanding more investment by governments in the health of their citizens. OTUWA represents trade union national centers in the 15 West African countries comprising the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Addressing journalists at a public...

  Following a 136-day strike, Montenegro’s telecom workers are celebrating a collective agreement that reverses a 14-year wage freeze and interrupts more than a decade of alleged union-busting tactics by Crnogorski Telekom (CT), majority owned by Deutsche Telecom since 2005. The agreement won by the Trade Union of Telecom of Montenegro (STCG) immediately increases workers’ wages […]

  Ten years after the multi-story Rana Plaza building collapsed in Bangladesh, killing 1,138 workers and injuring thousands more, garment workers and their unions say that although safety has improved in some instances, much more needs to be done. And fundamental to achieving safe working conditions is ensuring workers have the freedom to form unions. […]

A survey of tannery workers living in Hemayetpur, Bangladesh, is illustrating how the impact of industrial pollution, harsh working conditions and low wages is leaving workers, their families and their communities increasingly vulnerable to ever-increasing climate-related shocks in the country. “When combined with the health consequences of environmental degradation and the climate crisis, the com...

  For the second time this year a leader of the Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT) was arrested, this time for suspicion of insulting a public official at a protest outside the country’s Ministry of Culture building. The arrest of the UGTT’s secretary for culture, Abdel Nasser Ben Amara last month—who has since been acquitted […]

  Dozens of union leaders from across Africa took part in the first-ever Summit for Democracy event on the continent March 30, where they discussed the essential role of unions in strengthening democracy and shared strategies on how unions can step up efforts to advance democracy through one of its most essential components—worker rights. Co-hosted by the Multilateral Partnership for Organizing, W...

  Union activism was integral in getting $1 million in back wages and benefits restored to garment workers in Haiti after they were left jobless when their factory suddenly closed in December. More than 1,000 workers were impacted by the sudden closure, during vacation, of the U.S.-owned Vald’or factory. They did not receive severance pay, […]

  On the eve of the Summit for Democracy, high-level U.S. government officials and domestic and international labor activists highlighted the fundamental role of trade unions to reinforce, expand and protect democracy around the world at an official summit side event. The event Tuesday, March 28, “No Democracy Without Unions: Labor Movements as Defenders of […]

Workers from around the world, including those exiled from Belarus, Eswatini and Myanmar for forming unions, striking and trying to speak freely, describe why democracy is important—and why unions are key to democracy.

As a result of strong union activism, in partnership with Indigenous communities, the Brazilian government has recently halted a massive development project in the Brazilian wetlands that threatened workers and indigenous communities that are dependent on the river. Given this significant victory, we’re revisiting a podcast from 2022 when we first talked to activist and union leader Carmen Foro, w...

  A survey of more than 600 workers with disabilities in Nigeria’s formal and informal sectors, conducted by the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) Women Commission and the Solidarity Center in collaboration with Nigerian unions and disability rights organizations, finds that most workers with disabilities cannot access decent work as defined by the UN International Labor Organization (ILO). “I...

  Brazilian communities along a river near the Amazon are celebrating the government’s decision to halt a blasting and dredging project that could destroy their livelihoods and severely damage the environment. Earlier this month, the Public Prosecutor’s Office recommended that the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) suspend its preliminary license for the...

In Eswatini, where union workers are routinely harassed, attacked and even killed for going on strike or holding rallies, union leader Sticks Nkambule was recently targeted by the government for leading a strike to improve working conditions. Forced to flee the country, Nkambule describes the interconnected struggle for worker rights, human rights and democracy. “We […]