From the Arab uprisings to the international recognition of the rights of domestic workers, 2011 was a turning point for millions of workers around the globe. The AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center, whose mission is to support workers in building independent trade unions around the world, partnered with workers and their unions as they organized for better working conditions, greater social protections, more fair labor laws and increased democracy and equity in their countries.

In its just-released 2011 Annual Report, the Solidarity Center shows how its staff in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas partnered with workers and their unions organizing for better working conditions and for the fundamental rights denied to them.

Here are a few highlights.

In a key victory for working people around the world, on Monday the Philippines became the second country to ratify the International Labor Organization (ILO) convention on domestic work. An ILO “convention,” which sets international labor standards, must be ratified by a nation-state’s government for it to become the law in that nation. The Decent Work for Domestic Workers Convention (ILO Convention No. 189)—which addresses issues such as wages, working conditions, benefits, labor brokers and child labor—goes into effect one year after two countries approve it. Uruguay ratified C. 189 in April of this year.

Colombian unionists visited Washington, D.C., to meet with U.S. government officials and ask for their support in ensuring the Colombia Labor Action Plan. The delegation included Miguel Conde, general secretary of the Puerto Wilches local of Sintrainagro, an agricultural worker union representing workers on palm oil plantations; Jhonsson Torres, a founding member and vice president of the cane cutters union; Sinalcorteros; and Jose Luciano Sanin, executive director of the Escuela Nacional Sindical (ENS, National Union School). Getting assurance of continued support for implementation made the trip worthwhile for the Colombians, who are in the midst of a long-term struggle for an economy that provides workers with dignity, fair pay and benefits and respect for the exercise of free association and other fundamental rights. 

Today, Colombian trade unionists, representatives from the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), the Escuela Nacional Sindical (ENS, Colombia’s National Union School) and the AFL-CIO participated in a panel discussion on the implementation of the Colombian Action Plan Related to Labor Rights. The panelists reached a grim conclusion—so far, the Labor Action Plan (LAP) has failed to stop serious labor and human rights violations in Colombia, even though the U.S. government has declared it a success and has allowed the related Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to go into effect.  

Colombian workers, union leaders and the director of Colombia's national union school will take part in a panel discussion at AFL-CIO headquarters tomorrow following the release of a new report by the AFL-CIO on the Labor Action Plan that was intended to reduce the violence directed at Colombian workers and union activists and increase their ability to exercise basic labor rights such as free association and collective bargaining.  

The Labor Action Plan was negotiated to ease the passage of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. The AFL-CIO and allies successfully held off the vote for years over Colombia's troubling human rights record. Colombia has been the deadliest nation in the world for trade unionists. Thirty were slain in 2011 and another 10 were killed already this year. Impunity from prosecution for such killings remains high, at around 95 percent.

This is a cross-post from the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center.

During her tour of Southeast Asia, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged the greater protection of worker rights, improvement of labor standards and the empowerment of women following a private meeting in Cambodia with union leaders and labor activists. Clinton met privately in Siem Rep, Cambodia, with 12 women union leaders—independent union representatives from every major industry in Cambodia, labor lawyers and activists—as well as the Solidarity Center country program director, David Welsh.

In the remote village of Lenya, located in the province of Nyanza in Kenya, only girls attend primary school. Instead of getting an education, the boys must support and feed their families by fishing in nearby Lake Victoria.

The U.S. government’s decision to ease restrictions on U.S. investments in Burma is “premature and poorly thought through,” says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Lifting investment sanctions on a nation where forced labor and other human rights violations continue may, says Trumka:

undermine progress toward political reforms in Burma, rather than encourage movement toward democracy.

One of the first positive results from the war in Iraq was the re-emergence of a trade union movement—literally one month after the United States and allies went into that country in March 2003, five trade unions formed, representing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi workers. Since then, union members, especially those in unions representing oil workers, have been at the forefront of the push for a democratic society in the face of foreign strong-arming, said international Iraqi oil policy expert Greg Muttitt.

On July 1, Mexicans went to the polls to elect a president and Members of Congress. The stagnation of the economy, lack of opportunities for decent employment for young people and the terrible violence of the drug war were key issues motivating the voters.  Unfortunately, both the incumbent PAN party and one of the other challenging parties, the PRI,  support so-called labor law reforms that would undermine worker rights while weakening social protections.