“The factory caught fire about 6 p.m. After the fire, they did not allow us to go out,” says Nazma. “They locked the gate. The workers were screaming together.”

Tragedy struck again in Bangladesh this morning when a building that housed several garment factories collapsed, killing at least 194 people, mostly garment workers, injuring hundreds of others and trapping an unknown number of people in the rubble. A number of shops were also in the building.

You could not find a more striking physical contrast than that between AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka and 2013 Goldman Environmental Prize winner Nohra Padilla. Trumka's a big, strongly built son of the coal fields; Padilla a slight, waif-like woman from Bogota, Colombia.

Would you trust that your food is clean and uncontaminated, the plane you’re flying in airworthy or your workplace safe, if those were certified by companies counting on the profits they’ll make from your purchases, travel and labor? Of course not.

But that’s the dilemma millions of workers around the world face—often with deadly results—when it comes to their safety on the job, a new report from the AFL-CIO reveals:

www.aflcio.org/csr. 

Fresh from a series of resounding legal victories, Mexican mine workers leader Napoleón Gómez has written a book that exposes the Mexican government’s seven-year campaign to destroy democratic unions and drive down workers’ wages. Gómez won the AFL-CIO’s Meany-Kirkland Human Rights Award in 2011.

For sick or injured Bahrainis, going to the hospital means risking a prison term—or even death. Describing the “militarization of hospitals,” Rula al-Saffar, president of the Bahrain Nursing Society, said patients with “head traumas, broken bones or burns” are first interrogated by police to determine if they are involved in protests against the government. Health professionals are only allowed to treat patients after police investigate and clear them for treatment. For some, the delay means death.   

The National Farm Workers' Confederation (CNC) and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Canada signed a historic agreement to ensure the rights of migrant agriculture workers are protected and defended in Mexico, Canada and the United States, reports UFCW Canada. 

The AFL-CIO Solidarity Center and the international worker rights movement are commemorating Bangladesh union leader Aminul Islam, who was brutally murdered one year ago today. His murderer or murderers remain at large.

Sixteen years ago the American public and Kathie Lee Gifford were shocked when it was revealed that the Walmart clothing line that carried Gifford’s name was manufactured—unbeknownst to her—under sweatshop conditions by Honduran children working 20 hours a day. She burst into tears when shown undercover footage of the factories, and consumer support for new rules and labor standards for imported clothing grew.   

But now, writes Jake Blumgart in a Salon series of articles on workers and workplace issues brought to you by the AFL-CIO, “nothing much has changed.“

On Wednesday, top leaders of Brazil's largest trade union federation, Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT), including President Vagner Freitas, João Felicio and Artur Henrique, met with U.S. union leaders at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C., to discuss strategies for joint action, priorities and partnerships moving forward.