Four years ago today, the AFL-CIO and six Guatemalan trade unions filed a complaint under the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement about suppression of workers' basic rights in Guatemala. Although the case was accepted in 2009 and advanced to the dispute resolution phase in 2011, the government of Guatemala's "continuing recalcitrance to support and defend workers’ rights to free association, collective bargaining and even the simple right to be paid for work performed is shameful, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said today in a statement.

A new report from the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the World Bank examines countries’ jobs-related policy responses to the recent global financial and economic crisis. The report, "Inventory of Policy Responses to the Financial and Economic Crisis," demonstrates how governments across the globe and of all income levels used labor market interventions to limit the economic and social impacts of the crisis and spur employment, household income and economic growth and reduce poverty.

The Olympic medals handed out at this summer's Olympic Games in London may be shiny and pretty on the outside but the inside story of the union-busting conglomerate that will manufacture the medals is ugly.

United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard says Colombia “continues its shameful distinction as the most dangerous country in the world to be a trade unionist.” He says that withholding implementation of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is the “surest form of leverage the U.S. has to safeguard the lives and well-being of unionists in Colombia.”

Gerard’s comments follow Sunday’s announcement by the White House that it will implement the FTA beginning May 15.

The announcement by the White House this afternoon that Colombia has successfully implemented key elements  of the Labor Action Plan and that the U.S.–Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) will enter into force on May 15 "is deeply disappointing and troubling," says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that makes more electronic components than any other, is well-known for its large factories in China and their many severe labor rights violations. In an attempt to expand the market reach of brands it produces for, Foxconn has opened some factories in Brazil in the past few years, including one producing Apple products.  

But thanks to Brazil’s labor laws, industrial policy and its culture of unionization and collective bargaining, the Brazilian Foxconn workers may actually be able to afford one of the iPhones or iPads they assemble.

Auto parts workers at a maquiladora in Mexico who’ve been organizing to join an independent union got a big boost last week from cross-border solidarity. Nearly 8,000 workers in Ciudad Acuña (located in a Mexican border town south of San Antonio) labor for a company called PKC Group, which makes parts for Ford, Daimler Trucks, Volvo and other automakers. The workers’ organizing, and company efforts to silence them by hiring a company union and imposing a protection contract that prevents authentic organizing and representation, made news headlines and shook up company shareholders last week.

Trayvon Martin's shooting rightly provoked widespread indignation and outrage throughout America. Yet this weekend, our government could certify that Colombia has fulfilled its workers' rights obligations and allow the U.S. free trade agreement with Colombia to fully take effect.

That, says Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard in a post at AlterNet, would be turning "our backs on the 30 trade unionists slain in Colombia last year and the six that Justice for Colombia reports have been murdered already this year."

The U.S. Department of Labor has added three products to the list of goods produced by forced labor, child labor or both. The list now includes 133 products from 71 countries, ranging from bamboo in Burma to zinc in Bolivia. Added to the list yesterday are bricks in Afghanistan and cassiterite and coltan in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Citing “repeated and well-documented violations of workers' rights” that the Honduran government has “utterly failed to address,” the AFL-CIO and the major Honduran trade unions are asking the U.S. government to act under the terms of the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA).