The U.S. government, particularly the U.S. Department of Labor and ILAB especially, is a major funder of technical assistance to help address global labor abuse and build robust and resilient systems to prevent its recurrence.
ILAB Technical Assistance and Cooperation Projects
ILAB’s international grants support projects to address abusive labor practices globally including by promoting collective bargaining, freedom of association, and occupational safety and health and combating employment discrimination, the use of child labor, forced labor, and human trafficking in global supply chains. ILAB-funded projects also promote compliance with the labor requirements of U.S. trade agreements and preference programs – helping to ensure a fair global playing field for workers in the United States and around the world.
ILAB aims to impact worker rights in five main areas, in accordance with the five fundamental labor rights. ILAB expects all labor rights projects to work toward the advancement of one or more of these rights. Although it is not always possible for a project to observe significant changes in these areas within the life of the project, ILAB intends for all projects to achieve outcomes that, if sustained, will significantly contribute to and reinforce these impacts over time. Thus, the sustainability of project gains on local stakeholders, workers, and system dynamics is crucial to the project’s long-term success.
Here is a sample of ILAB projects that support worker rights in a variety of sectors, including projects with a responsible business conduct approach, strategies, or deliverables that can serve as examples or templates to help businesses drive change in global supply chains:
- Global Trace Protocol Project (Traceability)
- STREAMS: Supply Chain Tracing and Engagement Methodologies (Traceability)
- Fostering Accountability in Recruitment for Fishery Workers (FAIR Fish) (Fishing)
- Palma Futuro: Preventing and Reducing Child Labor and Forced Labor in Palm Oil Supply Chains (Palm Oil)
- My Voice: Project to Combat Forced Labor and Child Labor in the Production of Goods in Malaysia (Garments, Palm Oil)
- Cooperation On Fair, Free, Equitable Employment (COFFEE) Project (Coffee)
- Sustenar: Project to Build and Strengthen Sustainability Systems in the Tomato and Chile Sectors in Mexico (Tomatoes)
- Una Consecha Justa: Project to Reduce Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Other Forms of Labor Exploitation in the Chile Pepper and Tomato Sectors in Mexico (Chili Peppers)
- Senderos: Sembrando Derechos, Cosechando Mejores Futuros (Sugarcane)
- Combating Forced Labor and Labor Trafficking of Adults and Children in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire (FLIP) (Cocoa)
- All Hands in Kenya: Advancing Labor Standards through Cooperative Action (Tea/Textiles)
- Mexico Auto Employers (Automotive)
- Strengthening Worker Engagement, Empowerment, and Trust in the Dominican Sugar Sector (SWEET) (Sugar)
- Improving Workers’ Rights in the Rural Sectors of the Indo Pacific with a Focus on Women (Fishing, Agriculture)
- Improving Respect for Workers’ Rights in Agricultural Supply Chains in Honduras and Guatemala, and the Maquila Sector in El Salvador
- Implementing a Culture of Labor Compliance in Costa Rica's Agricultural Export Sector (Bananas, Coffee, Pineapple)
- Strengthening Decent Work in the Fishing Sector in South America (Fishing)
- Better Work (Ready-Made-Garments)
- Mexico Awareness Raising (Labor Law)
The Better Work Program
The Better Work program improves working conditions in global textile and apparel supply chains. By monitoring factories' compliance with national labor laws and international labor standards, Better Work promotes better conditions for workers, develops competitiveness by providing technical assistance to factories that need to improve their compliance, and informs major brands and buyers of labor conditions in the sector. Multinational apparel brands use that information to make business decisions and help determine where to place their orders.
Complete information about ILAB programming is available on the ILAB Knowledge Portal.
ILAB Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning
ILAB publishes independent evaluation reports of its programming as well as and monitoring and evaluation resources.
CLEAR – U.S. Department of Labor Clearinghouse
CLEAR is a clearinghouse for labor evaluation and research at DOL.
Worker Voice
Together with the Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Global Workers’ Rights and ICF International, the Bureau of International Labor Affairs conducted extensive research on what is and what is not true worker voice and why it is critical to make this distinction. The research identified six core components of worker voice. Labor, employers, and governments all have a role to play to ensure the conditions for genuine worker voice to thrive.
Worker voice is the ability of workers to come together, collectively articulate their demands, and seek better terms and conditions of work. It is a bedrock principle of labor relations. Freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining are core enabling rights that are essential to effective worker voice. When those rights are weakened by informal or precarious workplaces, adverse labor laws, or weak enforcement, worker voice is at risk.
Research shows there are six key components of effective worker voice.
- Elect: Workers must be able to act together to establish organizations and democratically elect the leaders that represent them, free from interference by employers or the government.
- Represent: Workers need to be informed of their rights, engaged, and mobilized for action. Elected organizational leaders must be fully accountable to their members and responsible for consulting them on key matters.
- Include: Workers’ organizations, including organization leadership, need to be inclusive. These groups should address obstacles to full representation and participation of the diverse workforce in their ranks, including diversity of race, gender, and economic status.
- Protect: Workers must be protected from retaliation when they speak up, including protection from losing their jobs or facing abuse, including harassment, threats, violence, coercion and deportation.
- Enable: Workers need to be given the time and space to organize and engage in their union business and the training and information to fulfill their rights.
- Empower: Workers must be empowered by labor laws, have the ability to pursue lawful actions to advance their objectives (including strikes), and have access to effective mechanisms to file grievances.