How a Danish trade union is empowering migrant construction workers to demand equal rights

Known locally as manteros, street vendors in Barcelona, Spain, organized and created a union called Diomcoop. The union offers full-time contracts to the vendors, which are difficult to obtain, and which allows them to legally sell on the streets. The contracts are a vital path to enter the conventional labor market.

Host governments tend to be wary of allowing refugees to move freely and work legally. However, integrating refugees into the labor market as quickly as possible reduces the concentration of newcomers in the informal sector, benefiting both locals and refugees in the long run.

Equip is a business in Lebanon that is trying to prevent further abuse of domestic workers, by helping them communicate better with their employers. “Their business model relies on employers paying for the company’s services, which range from $10 to $550, and include English lessons, first-aid training, legal translation, and conflict mediation.”

Tomato pickers have spent more than 20 years on a campaign for dignity and fair pay. The workers have succeeded, against incredible odds, in getting some of the biggest corporations in the country to recognize their plight.

Graduate student unions, like Oregon State University’s Coalition of Graduate Employees, use collective bargaining to allow student employees to successfully negotiate for fair wages, reasonable hours, and other terms of employment.

Workers at an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island voted to unionize after two years of organizing by the independent Amazon Labor Union. The union was started by a worker who was fired from the warehouse after protesting unsafe conditions during the COVID-19, and a current employee. The union raised funds through GoFundMe to carry out innovative organizing tactics, like making TikTok videos and bringing free food from diverse cultural backgrounds to feed workers coming and going from their around the clock shifts.

Meatpacking workers protested Covid-19 safety concerns and a coalition of advocacy groups filed a civil rights complaint with the government accusing Tyson and JBS USA of racial discrimination during the pandemic because the safety issues disproportionately impact line workers, who are largely people of color. Nevada’s Culinary Union also sued Las Vegas Strip casinos for unsafe working conditions. Two casinos have been dropped from the suit after deciding to negotiate privately with the union and Tyson has since instituted some safety measures, but broader impacts of the complaints remain to be seen.

The Fair Food Program, which educates and empowers farmworkers to report on-the-job sexual harassment, has all but eliminated sexual assaults at participating farms in an industry that otherwise is known for vast power imbalances between migrant labor and labor contractors. By giving employers key business incentives to participate and by cracking the code of silence among workers, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers-run FFP has protected employees by educating tens of thousands of them while enforcing standards through a rigorous investigation and hearings process.

Multiple initiatives have been launched in schools and health care facilities across Idaho to reach out to the Latino population and better serve the community. High school programs are providing space for Latino teens to find role models and hone leadership skills while teacher hiring and training has also been diversified. Health care facilities have made it easier for patients to access translation services.

Spurred by student activism and a research study on outsourcing, Harvard University implemented a parity policy in 2002. This means all university workers, regardless of whether the university or an outside contractor pays them, receive full benefits and higher pay. For an institution like Harvard that can afford to pay workers substantially more, there is greater employee satisfaction. However, researchers are still exploring if higher wages for some mean lower wages for others or fewer employees hired in the future.