Modern slavery: Labor trafficking is everywhere and nowhere

There are increasing costs to business when they fail to respect basic human rights. Many are therefore taking steps to avoid abuses – and are taking a proactive rather than reactive approach.

In an effort to achieve a true "fair work week," Philadelphia looks to Seattle's worker protection laws - which are among the best in the country. Seattle enforces a strict secure-scheduling policy, which ensures workers are compensated if an employer changes their schedule without fair warning.

In the Dominican Republic, employees at the Alta Gracia factory are paid 2.5 times the national minimum wage, a salary that is widely unheard of in the garment factories that make t-shirts and sports merchandise for American consumers. While the business has sometimes struggled to maintain investors and turn a profit, the guarantee of a living wage has introduced much deserved financial stability in the lives of workers who are often relegated to substandard conditions and minimal wages.

Professors, workers’ rights advocates, and workers themselves united to change the standard for the compensation of cleaning staff at local universities. Low paid service jobs, including cleaning, tend to be outsourced. This leads to lower pay and a lack of job security. Now there is a trend for universities to bring cleaning services in-house, increasing wages for workers and creating a better work culture for all.

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.”

In 1995 El Monte, a US sweatshop in California that housed workers without paying them, was raided. “The El Monte raid changed the garment industry.” After the raid, former president Bill Clinton created a sweatshop taskforce. “The El Monte raid was a very important point in the history of labor standards in this country.”

Iceland may be "the best country in the world for gender equality" but women get paid 30 percent less than men. Trade unions and businesses united to fix the problem. They reevaluated people's salaries through a point system, regardless of their gender. Now, the government has decided all companies in Iceland will have to implement the system, or pay a fine.

For decades, migrant workers in Florida have been employed under dreadful conditions, picking produce without breaks under extreme temperatures and women being sexually harassed. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has demanded that growers increase wages, mandate rest breaks, and prohibit sexual harassment. The Coalition has partnered with big food companies, notably McDonald’s, Yum Brands, and Walmart, which have pledged to buy only from growers who follow these standards.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) formed the first worker-driven social responsibility program in 1993, and since then they’ve advocated across industries for corporate social responsibility and preventing worker exploitation. The CIW also created the Fair Food Program which has helped add more than $45 million to farm workers’ paychecks.

Trader Joe’s stores across the United States are pushing for unionization with mixed results. While some stores have seen success, others have faced union-busting tactics and, in one scenario, an abrupt store closure.