Tag: unions

Summer Reflections Series: Solidarity Center

By Lissette Almanza

Through the generous support of the Rapoport Center’s Project on Inequality and Human Rights, I was able to spend my summer 2018 interning at the Solidarity Center in Washington D.C. The Solidarity Center, a global labor rights NGO affiliated with the AFL-CIO, works to empower workers to raise their voice for dignity on the job, justice in their communities and greater equality in the global economy. With the fellowship supporting my work on labor and human rights issues, I developed the skills and confidence to continue to pursue a career in international human rights advocacy.

Much of my work at the Solidarity Center’s Equality and Inclusion Department involved conducting research on the relationship between gender, trade policy and women’s labor rights, particularly as it relates to the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). My deep-dive into this research allowed me to draft an intersectional analysis on gender-related issues and labor rights violations in the world of work. The exploitation of women workers for economic gains, especially in the garment industry, prevent women and their families from achieving better livelihoods. However, the abuses women experience at work often remain invisible. With a better lens into these issues, my research will help advance the advocacy efforts of the Solidarity Center by demonstrating to union partners in Africa the need to fight for women’s worker rights and an egalitarian workplace.

As the summer unfolded, I found myself immersed in work surrounding gender-based violence (GBV) at work. GBV is violence that is directed against an individual or group of individuals based on their gender identity and can take multiple forms, including physical and sexual abuse, bullying and coercion among others. Following the International Labor Conference (ILC) that took place from May 28 – June 8, a proposed global standard on ending violence and harassment against women and men in the world of work became one step closer to reality, with a strong focus on GBV. Since the International Labor Organization (ILO) is considering for the first time a Convention with a Recommendation on this issue, I quickly realized that I was in the midst of a valuable and learning experience at the Solidarity Center.

As part of this global march towards an ILO Convention with a Recommendation, I had the opportunity to participate in the process of assessing ways that the Solidarity Center can support partners and allies to champion its adoption in June 2019. I used my policy analysis skills to create a comparison document that analyzed the text of the proposed global standard and tracked the amendments offered during the ILC by government, employer, and worker members. These tools are intended to help union partners strategize for the next round of negotiations and understand the position of each member group. I also worked closely with another intern to create an evaluation survey and interviewed field staff across the globe on the work that Solidarity Center and partners have done towards addressing GBV at work, as well as supporting the ILO Convention.

In addition to my work this summer, the Solidarity Center also facilitated weekly sessions to enhance our understanding of labor rights issues, as well as skill-based workshops. Interns met with staff or union affiliates to discuss topics on child labor, migration and human trafficking, workers’ rights in the global economy, and on collective bargaining. The conversations and discussions were enriching and allowed me to grasp a better sense of the importance of advocating for labor rights. The monitoring and evaluation session developed my understanding on what helps improve and achieve results for advocacy work.

Along with immersing myself in international labor rights during my time at the Solidarity Center, my voice as a labor rights advocate blossomed. Now, I feel connected to the worldwide labor movement and prepared to advance workers’ rights wherever I go. I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity and look forward to applying the skills and knowledge that I gained this summer as I jumpstart my career in the international human rights field.

New Research on the Relationships between Businesses and Military Regimes under Latin America’s Cold War

by Eyal Weinberg

13 FEB 2017

State terror and human rights violations during Latin America’s authoritarian phase have been amply studied in the past two decades. Scholarship has revealed how Cold War military dictatorships and juntas-headed national security states detained, tortured, and disappeared hundreds of thousands of civilians— from indigenous groups in Central America to political activists in the Southern Cone. Studies have also illuminated how the relations of military regimes with various international and domestic forces—among them U.S. policymakers, Church representatives, technocratic experts, and industrialists—enabled and facilitated that repression. Yet many facets of the repressive apparatus remain under-examined.

Recently, scholars are returning to scrutinize the interplay between business corporations and Latin American regimes. Early literature has already unraveled the close ties between business elites and authoritarian rules, from the state’s reliance on industrialists in developing a pro-market, open economy, to industrialists’ consent and sometimes-active support of coups d’état and ensuing state-led repression.  Today, newly available archives and updated approaches to the study of Latin America’s Cold War allow researchers to revisit some of these issues, as well as other questions that explore the entanglements between corporations and regimes.

Studies exemplifying this new wave of research were presented last September in a special workshop at the University of Göttingen in Germany. Presentations shed light on the changing nature of relationships between businesses and dictatorships across states and over time, analyzing the transitions from collaborations to conflicts and even opposition. They also examined the direct and indirect roles companies played in state-sponsored repression.  And they explicated how the regimes’ policy planning met business interests to introduce new domestic industries—healthcare, energy, and pharmaceutical markets, to name a few. The histories of multinational corporations under the military rules received a particular focus. Moving beyond the traditional interpretation of the authoritarian state as a guarantor of international companies, papers focused on how subsidiaries dealt with both state apparatuses and parent corporations, typically located in Europe or North America.

In Argentina, for example, German companies Deutz, Siemens, and Daimler-Benz held subsidiaries operating during the Dirty War. Case studies examined how these businesses reacted to workers’ protests and union demands, as well as how they handled reports of disappeared people in their correspondence with the distant board of directors. In 2015, for example, a team of Argentinian researchers supported by Argentina’s Ministry of Justice published a detailed report that investigates the responsibility of domestic and multinational companies in regard to human rights violations carried out on the premises of their factories. The workshop’s papers also payed considerable attention to the relationship of Volkswagen do Brasil (a subsidiary of the German car manufacturer) with the Brazilian regime and its counterinsurgency agencies. The Brazilian National Truth Commission (2012-2014) concluded that over 70 corporations, among them Volkswagen, provided security agencies with blacklists of unionizing and “problematic” workers, some of whom were later detained or fired. The workshop’s presentations illustrated the controversy over the extent of VW’s collaboration with state repression, a result of inaccessible or missing archival material. For now, appeals are still in review at the office of the Attorney General.

As the last example demonstrates, there is much to reveal about the intricate relationships between corporations and authoritarian regimes in Latin America, and particularly about their relation to human rights violations. Further archival research, as well as intellectual exchanges focused on that theme, will expand current knowledge and scholarship.

Eyal Weinberg is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at The University of Texas at Austin and member of the 2016-2017 Working Paper Series Editorial Committee.