What are the worst problems facing migrants around the world and how can governments better protect them? What would our immigration system look like if migrants, labor unions and other rights-based civil society groups were able to set policy? What kinds of government programs would they promote to empower migrants, regulate exploitative employers and labor recruiters and grow shared prosperity?

For the past few days, representatives from more than 300 diverse international organizations gathered at the United Nations in New York to tackle these critical questions, begin building connections across borders and discuss and develop strategies for bringing these issues to the forefront of the international development agenda. The series of meetings and presentations—part of a process billed as civil society consultative hearings—are meant to inform U.N. member states on civil society’s perspectives on migration issues prior to an October U.N. High Level Dialogue (HLD), where top government representatives will come together to discuss how to best develop policies related to migration and development.

The AFL-CIO has been contributing to a coordinated effort to forward a rights-based agenda at the United Nations led by the Global Coalition on Migration (GCM)—a network of migrant-led organizations, labor unions and worker centers and faith groups from every region of the world. GCM and its partners organized seven “regional consultations,” including one held at the AFL-CIO headquarters that brought together civil society groups to raise awareness about the HLD, formulate recommendations to governments and strategize on both short- and long-term goals to advance the human rights of migrants.  The inputs then were gathered into a global report presented to the United Nations.

At a time of considerable international debate and conflict on migration policies, including the historic immigration reform efforts under way in the United States, opportunities to collectively assess global migration and develop strategies to advance migrants’ rights are critically important. While the United Nations can often feel distant from the concerns of working people, consider that the past U.N. HLD in 2006 established the corporate-driven Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD), which has served as a privatized organization for business interests to advance the idea of temporary worker programs as a tool for development and wealth for poverty-stricken countries. These programs tie workers to their employers, undermine prevailing wages and working conditions and, as the International Labor Organization notes, provide “labor without people” by denying workers a road map to citizenship. In the United States, regardless of visa category, internationally recruited workers face disturbingly common patterns of abuse, including fraud, discrimination, economic coercion, retaliation, blacklisting and, in some cases, human trafficking.

Speaking to the U.N. General Assembly in a session on “labor and mobility,” Ana Avendaño, assistant to the president for immigration and community action at the AFL-CIO, put forward some of the labor movement’s key positions by demanding an end to tied visa programs and “immediate measures to curtail the illegal and exploitative actions of labor brokers [and] recruiters.” Later, allied speakers called to end the detention and criminalization of immigrants, while supporting meaningful access to citizenship rights, legal representation and health care for immigrants; family reunification programs; and the promotion of national jobs programs so that people are not forced to migrate to support themselves and their families.

The labor movement and its allies will continue fighting for the rights of immigrant workers and their families at the international level at the October U.N. HLD. As government representatives meet at the United Nations, the AFL-CIO, GCM, immigrants, labor unions and other allies will gather in New York for a “People’s Global Action” from Sept. 30 to Oct. 4 that will include workshops, global campaign strategy and a major march and rally to remind lawmakers that people must come before profits.

The five days of outside actions are still in the initial planning phases—to find out more about how you and your union can get involved this October, email cfanning@aflcio.org for more information.