This Labor Day, Support Unions to End Human Trafficking

Labor Day traditionally marks the end of summer across the country, but it's also a time to honor the contributions of working people and unions in the U.S. and around the world.  While child labor and trafficking continue in the U.S., unions in this country have historically played a critical role in both calling for stronger legal protections for young workers and in improving conditions for adult workers.

As I have argued here on Change.org before, unions are a very important part of efforts to reduce child labor, forced labor and trafficking.  When workers have a voice on the job, they can negotiate with their employers for better conditions so that they can support their families.  Better wages for parents means that children are less likely to need to work.  High rates of unionization improve standards for non-union workers as well by raising the bar for worker rights as opposed to contributing to a race to the bottom.  This improvement reduces the need of workers to end up in situations of trafficking and forced labor. 

Because of the benefits unionizing has for workers, employers often use a number of forms of intimidation to keep them from exercising their rights to join unions.  For example, in countries like Colombia and the Philippines, union leaders are often targeted for murder, false arrest and death threats by paramilitary groups.  Other workers are fired or blacklisted by companies when they start to organize.  Corporations like Wal-Mart are infamous for forcing employees to attend anti-union forums and distributing anti-union pamphlets or even closing down entire stores when there is a rumor of union organizing efforts underway.  Many companies institute employment schemes that greatly reduce the number of workers who are eligible for union membership under labor law.  These are just a few examples of how workers see their freedom of association violated on a regular basis.

The International Labor Rights Forum has been fighting the most exploitative labor conditions like child labor, forced labor and trafficking for years.  We created a new toolkit that we launches today to explain the importance of unions to reducing these abuses and highlighting different case studies of how the right to organize is violated around the world.  Most importantly, we have lots of ideas of how you can support workers who are organizing to improve their living and working conditions.  For example, what better way to celebrate Labor Day than to send a quick e-mail to some of the big companies named in our report for violating worker rights?  Click here to take action.

We hope that you will check out the new toolkit to learn more about the right to organize.  Make sure to share this resource with your community groups, friends and co-workers because when we all work together we CAN create a just world for workers!

Photo credit: ILRF