Blog

Defend Global Supply Chain Workers Facing the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 may not yet have sickened as many people in developing countries as in the U.S. or Europe, but over 150 million workers in supply chains are already suffering the swift and massive impact of the pandemic. These workers have even less savings and weaker social protection systems than the very weak ones U.S. workers have. Just as we insist U.S. government assistance in this crisis must prioritize jobs and workers’ lives and livelihoods, global collective efforts must focus on millions of workers in global supply chains who have no safety net.
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Colombian Workers Launch General Strike

Colombia's workers, students, and rural, indigenous and Afro-descendant communities will join together in a national general strike tomorrow, November 21. Unlike the strikes many U.S. workers have participated in increasingly in the last five years, Colombians are not striking against any single employer or industry.
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Imagine a President Uniting People

Imagine a president lifting 40 million citizens out of the poverty he had come from. Imagine a president making it easier for people who had been excluded from their nation’s wealth to get decent jobs, basic public services, college education or technical training. Imagine a president uplifting his country on the world stage as a model for shared prosperity and an economy that works for working people regardless of their race. Imagine that president leaving office after two terms with an approval rating over 80%. Where do you imagine that president should be nine years after leaving office?
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Brazilian and U.S. Workers Confronting Common Threat Build Solidarity in the Global Labor Movement

This week the AFL-CIO joins much of the global labor movement in Brazil to participate in the 13th Congress of Brazil's largest labor organization, the Central Unica dos Trabalhadores (CUT). Fred Redmond, AFL-CIO vice president and United Steelworkers vice president for human affairs, is leading the AFL-CIO delegation.
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What Happens When Call Center Jobs Are Shipped Abroad and Workers Try to Organize?

One of the world's largest "contact center" companies in the world, U.S.-based giant Alorica, has been expanding in the Philippines where over 1.3 million women and men work in the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector. These workers and their allies come together through BIEN, the BPO Industry Employees Network, to defend workers interests in this booming sector. Alorica, a global player in this industry, offers "customer experience" services to the U.S. market for clients like Comcast, AT&T, Citibank, Barclays and Caesars.  
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A Global Supply Chain Still Built on Worker Misery: The Garment Industry in Bangladesh

Nearly five years after the torture and assassination of Bangladeshi labor leader Aminul Islam, the country's garment-sector employers and the government continue to persecute workers who try to exercise basic...