The Solidarity Center is dedicated to helping workers around the world build a shared prosperity in both their local and global economies.

Workers who struggle to find safe and healthy job sites as well as family-supporting wages have concerns that far too often go unheard.

This nonprofit aims to help these workers find their voice on the job, working with unions, worker associations and community groups worldwide to achieve equitable and sustainable development.

Since 1997, the Solidarity Center has made it their mission to stand up for international worker rights so that workers can gain the social protections they need to improve their working and living conditions.

With programs expanding across some 60 countries, the Solidarity Center provides workers a range of education and training that focus on the following: worker rights, union skills, occupational safety and health, economic literacy, human trafficking, women’s empowerment and bolstering workers in an informal economy.

In addition, they provide research, legal support and other resources that help build strong trade unions and more equitable societies.

More specifically, the Solidarity Center assists unions with strengthening internal structures, like gender parity, and helping workers recover stolen wages or benefits illegally denied to them. They also connect migrant workers to protective networks to decrease vulnerability. Most importantly, they boost advocacy efforts so that campaigns can go beyond borders.

These examples can be found in a short bullet-point list on the Solidarity Center’s website, where one can also find the annual reports they conduct for each country that they work in.

In addition, the Solidarity Center keeps their news and events up-to-date, a testament to how actively involved they are in their work.

Recently, the Solidarity Center received the biggest testament to their efforts when President Barack Obama spoke at the 2014 Clinton Global Initiative about the need to develop young civil society leaders.

The first person that he recognized as a contributor to the development of his community was Solidarity Center’s own Walid Ahmed Ali, a Kenyan social justice activist.

President Obama congratulated him on his work in creating jobs at the Kenya-Somali border for unemployed youth, telling him that he “strives not just for the idea of democracy,” but “to cement the practice of democracy.”

At the Solidarity Center, you’ll find people like Walid Ahmed Ali who do just that. Though not all can be recognized in the same manner, everyone is fully committed to helping working men and women to be a force for democracy and shared prosperity.

If you believe that all people who work should receive the rewards of their work – decent paychecks and befits, safe jobs, respect and fair treatment – then visit the Solidarity Center to learn how you can get involved in creating a more inclusive economic development.

– Chelsee Yee

Sources: Solidarity Center, ALFCIO
Photo: Bangor Daily News