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Global Labor Program: South Africa

Working with more than 300 labor unions, pro-worker nongovernmental organizations, legal aid groups, human rights defenders, women's associations, and advocacy coalitions around the world, in more than sixty countries—including South Africa—Solidarity Center's professional staff of more than 200 support and stand in solidarity with social-change activists around the world as they strive to build a global network of worker rights defenders and exercise their rights, including organizing for safer work sites, demanding living wages and improving laws (and the enforcement of existing laws) that protect working people, and fighting exploitation and abuse, and stand as a force for shared prosperity and inclusive economic development. Under the Global Labor Program—a five-year cooperative effort by the Solidarity Center and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to promote worker rights, gender equality and democracy worldwide—Solidarity Center’s South Africa program provides training, mentorship and legal support to farm workers, construction workers, domestic workers, street vendors and other workers in the informal sector, with an emphasis on strengthening labor protections, increasing workers’ access to justice, advancing gender and LGBT equality in the workplace and advocating for the rights of migrant workers. Learn more about Solidarity Center's work in South Africa

The Solidarity Center's many years of work in South Africa involves allies such as the Food and Allied Workers Union, FAWU, whose members here are constructing a building in Krugersdorp. Credit: Solidarity Center/Jemal Countess

Activities

Tailored to each country or region—and reaching workers in garment factories, home service, seafood processing, mining, agriculture, informal marketplaces, manufacturing, the public sector and beyond—USAID-funded Solidarity Center programs:

Support the development and strengthening of independent labor unions and other labor-related organizations in their efforts to support and enhance democratization, equitable economic development and a democratic political culture by promoting effective citizen participation

Develop and strengthen national and local union leadership and programmatic capacity, including encouraging internal leadership opportunities for women and youth

Improve the institutional and financial capacity of labor unions and labor civil society organizations

Strengthen the observance of internationally recognized core labor standards by advocating their adoption into law and regulation and promoting effective enforcement once adopted.