 Workers at a unionized banana processing plant, Frutera del Atlántico, in Morales, Guatemala. Photo: Mark Anner.
Did you know, labor rights play a critical role in sustainable economic development and resilient democracies? In recent years, the United States has strengthened its leadership on workers’ rights and labor standards around the world, including through an unprecedented “Presidential Memorandum on Advancing Worker Empowerment, Rights, and High Labor Standards Globally.” A strengthened, empowered global workforce aligns with USAID’s goals of economic growth and democratic resilience, and USAID’s contributions to improving labor conditions demonstrate the power of working at the intersection of labor rights and economic development.
Ahead of International Labor Day on May 1, this month’s edition of the DRG Learning Digest examines labor rights from the following perspectives:
- Empower Workers, Strengthen Economies and Democracies
- The Six Key Components of Effective Worker Voice
- Busting Bad Labor Practices
Please make use of DRG Evidence and Learning Team resources! (See text box at the end.)
Empower Workers, Strengthen Economies and Democracies
The Presidential Memorandum, issued in late 2023, directs all agencies engaged abroad to protect and promote internationally-recognized labor rights, engage on labor issues and worker empowerment, and advance monitoring of and compliance with high labor standards. And why is that? Because it is in everyone’s interest! Not only is it the right thing to do, but treating workers fairly strengthens democracies and economies. USAID meets the efforts outlined in the Presidential Memorandum through its DRG and economic growth activities, in addition to its diplomatic engagements with counterpart governments, the private sector, and partners in the labor movement.
Although the twin goals of decent work (that is, “opportunities for work that are productive and deliver a fair income, security in the workplace, and social protection for workers and their families”) and economic growth have at times been considered at odds, the former makes a critical contribution to the sustainability of the latter. Decent work puts more money in the pockets of workers and their families that they can then spend in the local economy and, when paired with good fiscal policy, can increase tax revenue which then improves social services. Fair wages for all workers reduces inequality and increases the resilience of vulnerable workers to withstand shocks.
Not only do workers’ rights strengthen the economy, but they pave the way for healthier democracies. When workers take collective action in networks that are not designed to capture state power (such as through trade unions or professional organizations) they are the most likely to generate democratization. This underscores the importance of supporting independent trade unions and civil society labor networks to advance nonviolent resistance and promote democratization. As noted by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) General Secretary Luc Triangle, “Democracy at work through freedom of association and collective bargaining are central to any genuine and healthy democracy.”
The Six Key Components of Effective Worker Voice
Work is central to most people’s daily lives. As such, labor issues and the ways in which workers express their rights are topics that affect many of USAID’s development objectives. Worker voice is the ability of workers to come together, collectively articulate their demands, and seek better terms and conditions of work. Research shows there are six key components of effective worker voice: Elect, Represent, Include, Protect, Enable, and 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.
 Six components of worker voice.
Elect, Represent, and Include
Workers engaged in collective action are able to express democratic participation and civic activism, contributing to a vibrant and active democracy. The World Economic Forum writes, “When democratic rights are locked out of the workplace, working people are not only deprived of the possibility to help shape their own working lives, but their civic lives as well.” A decline in workers’ rights, such as violations of the right to collective action and the right to establish and join a trade union, is associated with a decline in economic equality and a rise in political instability. USAID’s Global Labor Program-New Frontiers in Advancing Labor Rights (GLP-NFALR), implemented by the Solidarity Center, was created in order to increase the capacity of worker organizations to promote these basic human rights, increase access to justice for employees, and advance decent work worldwide. These efforts include promoting gender equality and ensuring the rights of vulnerable populations, such as migrants and those working in the informal sector, with activities in 28 countries.
 On May 1, 2018, women rally for a living wage, maternity protections, freedom of association, and an end to gender-based violence at work, alongside the labor rights organization and Solidarity Center partner Awaj Foundation, near the Dhaka Press Club. Bangladesh’s ready-made garment industry is the country’s biggest export earner. However, wages are the lowest among major garment-manufacturing nations. Without a union, garment workers, the majority of whom are women, are often harassed or fired when they ask their employer to fix workplace hazards or seek living wages. (Photo: Musfiq Tajwar, Solidarity Center)
Protect
Workplace conditions that protect worker health and safety and protect workers from discrimination support the human rights of those workers. Strong protections against discrimination and improving employment opportunities for youth and women and persons with disabilities lead to a more inclusive labor force. This is important for the economic empowerment of women, who are frequently highly vulnerable in the workplace, and it is crucial in contexts where high youth unemployment is an obstacle to supporting democratic resilience. Moreover, increasing women’s labor force participation has significant economic benefits. According to the OECD, across countries, closing the gender gap could “lift GDP by more than 9% by 2060, adding about a quarter of a percentage point to average annual growth.”
Additionally, migrant workers can be particularly vulnerable to workplace abuses due to a lack of legal protections in the informal sector. They frequently work in the informal economy due to their existence on the margins of regulatory norms, which may preclude access to social benefits and programs including pensions and access to fair compensation. They may live apart from their families, reside in poor conditions, and be especially vulnerable to disease. That said, international migration can have positive outcomes, including facilitating sustainable development in both their destinations and their countries of origin. Migrants provide critical skills and labor to the economies of the countries they work in, which benefits the economies of those countries. Additionally, they can send remittances to their countries of origin and potentially bring newly obtained skills and education on their return. Protecting the rights of migrant workers is not only a matter of human rights protection, it also supports a broader framework of workers’ rights.
Enable and Empower
One key contributing factor to the large movement or displacement of between 25 and 300 million people globally by 2050 is climate change. Migrant workers often have jobs that are vulnerable to extreme conditions and are exacerbated by climate change, and heat stress is disproportionately affecting countries with historically higher rates of workers in sectors such as subsistence agriculture. Upholding migrant workers’ rights is a key consideration in a just transition to a low-carbon economy, requiring prioritizing decent jobs and social protections for workers. This may include ensuring trade union rights for sectors with a large proportion of migrant workers and removing barriers for migrant workers to access formal jobs.
Carlos Marques, 20, a Venezuelan immigrant to Brazil, was supported by USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) after migration to Brazil. Hired as a cook, he became self-sufficient and able to assist other Venezuelans. Photo: Emmily Melo/Cáritas
USAID’s Global Labor Program — Platform for Organizing by Workers for Empowerment and Recognition (GLP-POWER) links labor collective action and civic action. GLP-POWER works in South and Southeast Asia to improve marginalized workers' access to fair and decent work and overcome an increasingly restricted democratic space. GLP-POWER partners with the Solidar Suisse-led coalition of labor rights organizations to develop innovative methods of organizing migrant and informal workers. These innovations include “the use of technology to connect workers to each other, and to provide resources to assist them in protecting their rights.” This work will help migrant and informal workers to address some challenges noted above, such as advocating for healthy working conditions and access to social benefits, which in turn supports their contributions to both the sending and receiving countries.
Moreover, research shows persons with disabilities face a combination of systematic, attitudinal, or environmental barriers that limit their participation in common areas of employment such as agricultural value chains, and they often have little or no control over production and marketing decisions. In Kenya, USAID’s Global Labor Program — Inclusive Futures (GLP-IF) is researching how to improve smallholder farmers with disabilities participation in labor markets and increase their confidence in exercising their labor rights as farmers. The project’s Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) report demonstrates that women’s roles in agriculture are further affected by cultural norms and practices. GLP-IF is addressing the collective bargaining and labor rights of persons with disabilities, particularly women, with major beverage producers. The activity is providing training and inputs to smallholder farmers and retailers to organize in order to collectively bargain for higher prices and negotiate better profit margins.
 Jane Akinyl is a sorghum farmer in Kenya. Read “Jane’s Story” here for a picture of the impact of Inclusive Futures on disabled farmers who supply beverage manufacturers in Kenya. Photo: Ninth Wonder Productions/Sightsavers
Busting Bad Labor Practices
Strong labor rights are also a key component to identifying and countering labor abuses in supply chains. Worldwide, an estimated 152 million children are in child labor, and 25 million adults and children are in forced labor. As an important part of the global economy, supply chains may have significant benefits: generating growth, creating employment and skill development opportunities, and facilitating technological transfer. However, supply chains are also at particular risk of labor abuses such as child labor and forced labor, because of the outsourcing of labor and the distancing of corporations from labor. It is the responsibility of all parties involved in the global supply chain, including private enterprise, civil society, and governments, to prevent these labor abuses — and it will require coordinated efforts to end them.
Measuring and tracking labor abuses in the supply chain is a significant challenge due, in part, to the complexity of the global supply chain. In contexts where law enforcement is lax and the economic pressures on suppliers is strong, these abuses are more likely. This is why USAID’s expertise in building and strengthening supply chains and protecting workers rights is critical to shift these practices. USAID-funded research under GLP-NFALR examined the conditions of workers in the agricultural supply chain. One study of banana workers in Guatemala found that unionized workers earn more, work fewer hours, face less sexual harassment, and have safer workplaces. The findings suggest an avenue for USAID’s continued support for collective action that can help workers advocate for themselves at all levels of the supply chain.
Sample results from Solidarity Center’s “What Difference Does a Union Make? Banana Plantations in the North and South of Guatemala.”
The U.S. government is working to end forced labor through the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force. One example of a coordinated effort is the recently passed Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which strengthens the application of restrictions on importing goods made with forced labor, unless the importer can prove otherwise, and are therefore banned from import. USAID’s GLP-NFALR further leverages this legislation to advocate for multinational companies to address forced labor and other labor abuses in their supply chains.
Further Assistance
USAID’s Labor Team in the DRG Bureau is available to support USAID Missions, Bureaus, and Offices with labor-related technical assistance and guidance. Please reach out to the Labor Team to also learn more about their Global Labor Programming and funding mechanisms at: DRG.Labor@USAID.gov.
Recent and Upcoming DRG Learning Events
DRG Learning Community of Practice: Measuring Progress on Human Rights - On April 11, the DRG Bureau hosted Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI) co-Executive Directors Melissa del Aguila (US) and Thalia Kehoe Rowden (New Zealand) to take a detailed tour of the data on the Rights Tracker and discuss their methods and impact. The HRMI tracks the human rights progress of countries, producing quantitative and qualitative data for nearly every country in the world. The HRMI will eventually measure all human rights in international law, and has begun with collections of economic and social rights, and civil and political rights. All the data are freely available on the Rights Tracker.
DRG Evidence and Learning Talk Series: From Anti-Corruption to Human Rights to Democracy: How Donors Can Support Nonviolent Collective Action - In her new US Institute of Peace (USIP) publication, "Supporting Nonviolent Action and Movements: A Guide for International Actors," Shaazka Beyerle, Senior Fellow with the Terorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) at George Mason University, provides strategic questions, considerations, and practices to inform donor policy and operationalization to support peaceful citizen-driven change, including in fragile and rapidly changing political contexts typified by corruption, poor governance, poverty, violent conflict, and democratic erosion. On April 16, she joined the DRG Bureau to discuss key considerations arising from the research, including identifying nonviolent action catalysts, constructive engagement with grassroots actors, timing support with movement phases, pathways for support, and monitoring, evaluation and learning alternatives. Talk details and recording here.
DRG Learning Community of Practice: Mining Documents Using AI - On April 18, USAID’s Center for Conflict and Violence Prevention (CVP) presented its Peacebuilding Research, Evidence, and Programming Portal (PREP Portal), a tool that uses machine learning models and artificial intelligence tools to curate, organize, and summarize nearly 2,500 conflict and conflict-related programming documents found on the Development Experience Clearinghouse (DEC). Cutting across development sectors, these documents help define the universe of conflict programming from 2001 to 2023.
Tuesday Group: Insights from the 2023 WJP Rule of Law Index: Turning People-Centered Rule of Law Data into Action - On April 23, Elizabeth (Betsy) Andersen, Executive Director of the World Justice Project (WJP), presented on the 2023 WJP Rule of Law Index. The Index found the rule of law declining in 59 percent of the countries measured. This was the sixth year in a row in which WJP found a majority of countries with declining rule of law - what WJP has characterized as a global rule of law recession. In Ms. Andersen’s presentation, she shared details of the findings and the people-centered data collection methodologies that lie behind them. Notwithstanding the negative global rule of law trends, WJP finds some jurisdictions making steady progress. She also highlighted some of these bright spots and shared how WJP is seeing its data drive this positive change.
Evidence-to-Action Training: USAID staff are invited to participate in a three-day training in Washington, D.C. on June 18, 20, and 21. This training will provide participants with new concepts, resources, and tools to aid in incorporating evidence in activity design, learning throughout the program cycle, generating new evidence through rigorous evaluation, and incorporating social and behavioral change approaches. USAID staff can register here.
Next Fireside Chat will discuss Labor Rights on April 30th at 7AM EDT, please join us!
Use Our Resources!
Welcome to the DRG Learning Digest, a newsletter to keep you informed of the latest learning, evaluation, and research in the Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) sector. Views expressed in the external (non-USAID) publications linked in this Digest do not necessarily represent the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government.
Check out past editions of the Learning Digest here. Want the latest DRG evidence, technical guidance, events, and more? Check out the new DRGLinks website: https://www.drglinks.org/.
Don't forget to check out our DRG Learning Menu of Services! (Link only accessible to USAID personnel.) The Menu provides information on the learning products and services the Evidence and Learning Team offers to help you fulfill your DRG learning needs. We want to help you adopt learning approaches that emphasize best fit and quality.
The Evidence and Learning Team is also excited to share our DRG Learning, Evidence, and Analysis Platform (LEAP) with you. This Platform contains an inventory of programmatic approaches, evidence gap maps, the DRG Learning Harvest, and inventories of indicators and country data portraits - all of which can be very useful in DRG activity design, implementation, evaluation, and adaptation. Some of these resources are still being built, so check back frequently to see what has been newly added.
The DRG Learning Harvest on LEAP is a searchable database of DRG learning products, including summaries of key findings and recommendations, drop-down menus to easily find documents related to a particular country or program area, and links to the full reports on the DEC.
Our friends at the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute are also seeking to expand their research partnership with USAID on the complex nature of democracy by inviting research questions from you for V-Dem to work on. If there's a DRG technical question you've been wondering about, please email the Evidence and Learning Team at drg.el@usaid.gov.
Each month the DRG Bureau will be sharing with Missions and practitioners a wealth of evidence and learning resources on the themes below. These themes are scheduled a month ahead of international days or months of commemoration in order to get evidence and learning to Missions and practitioners in time to apply it during the month/day being celebrated or honored. In the month following the monthly theme, there will be a Fireside Chat for Missions to engage with the resources shared throughout the month and provide an opportunity for Missions and OUs across the Agency to share and exchange learning and experiences. If you are interested in contributing to one of the monthly themes or would like to be invited to the Fireside Chats, please reach out to drg.el@usaid.gov.
We welcome your feedback on this newsletter and on our efforts to promote the accessibility, dissemination, and utilization of DRG evidence and research. Please visit the DRG Bureau's website for additional information or contact us at DRG.EL@usaid.gov.
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