Bob Baugh directs the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and chairs its Energy Task Force. He is at the United Nations climate talks with labor delegates from around the world.

After two years of exceeding expectations, a United Nations group of unions is ready to continue creating plans for jobs and addressing climate change.

At the start of this year’s conference, which is known as the 2012 COP 18, nobody thought much would happen, especially because the meeting is being held in Qatar, which leads the world in per capital carbon emissions. Qatar also represents the bloc of oil nations that tied up previous negotiations over demands concerning the potential loss of oil revenue because of a climate agreement. The host country gets to run the meeting and set the agenda for these talks.

Bob Baugh is the executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and serves as chair of the federation’s Energy Task Force and as the liaison to the International Trade Union Confederation's (ITUC's) Climate Working Group. He is at the United Nations climate talks with the ITUC delegation.

The trade unions of the world have come to the Climate of the Parties (COP) 18, the 2012 U.N. climate talks in Doha, to speak out for workers’ rights and to promote a global climate agreement. The AFL-CIO and the ITUC have worked to promote a Just Transition agenda within a new climate accord that recognizes the need for good jobs, decent work and a democratic voice for workers and communities. Decent work is a recognized set of international standards that includes the right to organize, collective bargaining and for a safe and healthy work environment.

Dec. 1 is World AIDS Day and the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center is spreading the word.

A new post on the center's website says, "Reaching workers on the job and educating them about HIV prevention is an essential element in slowing—and ultimately ending—HIV/AIDS."

This is an excerpt of the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center's Human Trafficking Thrives Under Worker Exploitation. 

Human trafficking thrives in an environment of worker exploitation and engenders forced labor, debt bondage and other egregious labor abuse. The most effective way to address this scourge, says Neha Misra, Solidarity Center senior specialist on migration and human trafficking, is by empowering workers to have a voice in their workplace and supporting their right to organize and join unions.  

As President Obama meets today with Mexican President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is calling for improved rights for Mexico's working families. In recent months, Mexican workers have faced a series of challenges to their basic rights.

A deadly fire in a Bangladesh garment factory that killed at least 112 workers has been linked to Walmart. Photos from the scene of the fire show Faded Glory-brand clothing, an exclusive Walmart label it sells in stores. Walmart said in a statement the Tazreen Fashions Ltd. factory was no longer authorized to produce merchandise for them at the time of the fire, but that a supplier subcontracted work to it "in direct violation of our policies." The biggest retailer in the United States said they have terminated their relationship with the supplier. 

This is an excerpt from the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center's "Unions Mark No to Violence Against Women Day."

At a Turkish-owned textile plant in the Democratic Republic of Georgia a few years ago, female employers were repeatedly forced to remain on the job without pay for hours a day. When they ultimately demanded to be released, the factory manager responded by yelling and throwing a heavy load of unfinished dresses at one woman. The blow knocked her unconscious. The factory manager returned to Turkey to avoid prosecution—but likely would not have faced charges even if he had stayed, says Bob Fielding, Solidarity Center country program director in Georgia, who described the incident.

Celeste Drake, trade policy specialist for the AFL-CIO, sends us this. 

It’s been more than seven months since the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (Columbia FTA) went into effect, and many U.S. workers are wondering exactly how the agreement is benefiting workers in either country. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. For America’s workers, the U.S. trade deficit with Colombia is on track to exceed last year’s deficit—never good news for job creation or wage growth. Meanwhile, Colombian workers still face momentous obstacles when trying to exercise even the most basic of workplace rights, including the right to organize unions and act collectively for better working conditions. 

Celeste Drake, trade policy specialist for the AFL-CIO, sends us this. 

On Wednesday, Nov. 14, in Mexico City, Mexico, the PRD group of the Mexican Senate, along with the Mexican labor federation UNT and the campesino federation CONORP, hosted a one-day summit looking at the social and economic impacts of theTrans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (TPP or Trans-Pacific FTA). The summit was held at the same time as delegations from the 11 TPP countries (Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and the United States) were meeting elsewhere in Mexico to negotiate the agreement. 

This is a cross-post from the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, by Tula Connell.

Nicaragua this week became the third country to ratify the International Labor Organization (ILO) convention on domestic workers. An ILO “convention” sets international labor standards, and the “Decent Work for Domestic Workers” convention addresses issues such as working conditions, wages, benefits and child labor while requiring nations to take measures making decent work a reality for domestic workers.