Champions of Fair Labor: Ensuring Worker Rights and Economic Justice

The world of work is changing at unprecedented speed. Globalization, informality, and emerging technologies are creating precarious conditions that impact everyone, and disproportionately those who already experience discrimination. Traditional employment is giving way to the gig economy and temporary work structures, leaving billions of people and their families disrupted by erratic schedules, income insecurity, and a lack of care support.

In response, worker leaders around the globe are building collaborative systems. They are amplifying voices from the margins and centering the workers most vulnerable to these shifts. These leaders are forging people-centered coalitions across sectors to advance workplace policies that give workers a voice in how technology is used and impacts their lives. They are also securing groundbreaking protections to ensure safety and dignity in the world of work, inspiring similar solutions in other regions.

Two women wearing headscarves and patterned jackets stand outdoors in front of a building with a sign that reads "PT. SEMARANG GARMENT." They are smiling and raising a clenched fist in a show of solidarity. — Worker Rights Consortium

The Worker Rights Consortium: Fighting for Garment Workers Worldwide

From harassment to wage theft, exploitation plagues the global apparel industry. The Worker Rights Consortium is fighting back with groundbreaking worker protection agreements and has recovered over $150 million in stolen wages for vulnerable garment workers worldwide.

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Divya Varma: Strategizing Solutions for India’s Migrant and Informal Workers

Work Fair and Free supports policy action by conducting grassroots research, advocating for labor protections, and building infrastructure that ensures dignity for informal and migrant workers across India. By highlighting the lived realities of migrant workers, the organization’s hyper-local model for improving labor rights and infrastructure offers a valuable example for advocates worldwide.

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Women Rising

A narrative series examines the intersection of climate change and gender-based violence in the world of work and the essential leadership of women workers to address this challenge.

A cohort of LUNA graduates at the 2023 reunion in Brazil stands close together in a hallway. Some are smiling and engaged in conversation. One woman in front wears a floral blouse, while another wears a purple shirt with text and graphics.

Meet the Domestic Workers and Labor Leaders Fighting for a Just Care Economy

Domestic workers face low wages, inadequate protections, and exploitation. The National Domestic Workers Alliance, the International Domestic Workers Federation, and other organizations are helping to build the leadership of domestic workers to improve the way the world cares.

“The success – or collapse – of any one nation, region, industry or supply chain has a ripple effect across the whole world. The informal economy is inextricable from the greater global economy, and it must be not only considered but prioritized in conversations about economic recovery.”

– Darren Walker

An illustration shows people delivering packages, on a bike and in a wheelchair. Icons of technology, such as surveillance cameras, emails, and location pins, are floating in the blue background.

Making Tech Work for Workers

This series explores how technology in the workplace, from scheduling software to gig platforms, often increases precarity and surveillance. It highlights how worker-led movements are pushing back to demand that technology is co-designed with workers, not just for them, to create a more just and equitable digital economy.

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More Than 2 Billion Workers Make Up the Informal Economy

The informal economy makes up 60% of the global workforce and 90% in the developing world. Learn about the Ford grantees building a movement to secure the rights of all workers.

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Philanthropy Takes Action to Promote Labor Rights in Brazil

A joint $8.5M USD fund supports labor movements and civil society organizations in Brazil and advances the rights of urban and rural workers.

Hilary Pennington has short hair with blond highlights and is wearing an orange turtle neck sweater. Anannya Bhattacharjee has short black hair and is wearing a blue and white patterned sweater over a beige and white blouse.

Global Work Needs to Be Local: Hilary Pennington With Anannya Bhattacharjee

Labor activist Anannya Bhattacharjee and former Ford vice president Hilary Pennington discuss how to scale local strategies to improve the lives of garment factory workers worldwide.

Transcript

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VIOLET SHIVUTSE [a Black Kenya woman from Africa with black hair and black eyes, Chair and Africa Regional Representative. Huairou Commission]:

The world we want is where the grassroots women who are shouldering the burden of care day-to-day during pandemics, disasters like climate change, floods, and drought, can be able to sit on the decision-making, to plan around care, and to be able to influence policy priorities.

Huairou Commission is a global movement of grassroots women-led organizations. We are working with over 1 million caregivers in 41 countries worldwide. The biggest challenge that we face as caregivers is that we are not included in budget-making process. We are also not included in policy priority setting, and usually the needs of caregivers are left out. Huairou Commission has been supporting the caregivers to amplify their voice and be able to speak about the issues affecting them, but also position the grassroots women caregivers as key agents of change and not beneficiaries.

Huairou Commission is calling for recognition of the role of grassroots women caregivers, respect the critical role that the caregivers are playing in the society, and valuing caregivers compensating the grassroots women for the contribution they are bringing on the table.

End of transcript.

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Civic Space and Worker Rights in the Global South: The Role of Philanthropy

Philanthropy must support workers’ movements in the Global South to defend shrinking civic space. Labor movements are crucial for upholding human rights and democracy. By funding innovative organizing models, taking a gender-inclusive approach, and providing long-term, unrestricted support, funders can help workers build power, secure their rights, and strengthen democracy.