building a just world for workers – also in espanol
- MISSION STATEMENT: ILRF is an advocacy organization dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide.
- ILRF: Millions of workers around the world toil under inhumane working conditions. In a globalized economy, corporations from developed countries produce consumer goods ranging from coffee to cellphones in poor developing countries, where they can take advantage of cheap labor and lack of environmental or community protections. Workers, including child workers, must toil extremely long hours for wages that are barely subsistence wages, and often under unsanitary and unsafe conditions. In many countries there is little or no labor law enforcement, and many workers are prevented from joining organizations to advance their interests … (about 1/2).
Homepage;
What you can do; Publications, Resources; Archives; ILRF-Blog; Events; Jobs, Internships; Staff; Board; Join us; Link to STITCH.org;
Address: International Labor Rights Forum, 1634 I St NW #1001, Washington, DC 20006, USA;
Contact.
About 2/2: … Alarmingly, an estimated 211 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are compelled to work around the world.
These children produce rubber, cotton, coffee and work in mines to produce goods that are traded to the United States and other developed countries. Unable to go to school, these children face little hope of escaping poverty in their future.
Advocacy for these workers is essential to ensuring their protection, strengthening their voice, and ending abuses that violate their rights and dignity.
ILRF is an advocacy organization dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide. ILRF serves a unique role among human rights organizations as advocates for and with working poor around the world. We believe that all workers have the right to a safe working environment where they are treated with dignity and respect, and where they can organize freely to defend and promote their rights and interests. We are committed to ending the problems of child labor, forced labor, and other abusive practices. We promote enforcement of labor rights internationally through public education and mobilization, research, litigation, legislation, and collaboration with labor, government and business groups.
ILRF PROJECTS
Stop Child Labor:
- ILRF engages in corporate campaigns to fight for an end to child labor globally. We are currently focusing on the cocoa industry (especially Nestle) for their use of child labor in West Africa and Bridgestone Firestone for child labor on their rubber plantation in Liberia. ILRF also has been heavily engaged in the issue of child labor in cotton and cottonseed fields.
Rights for Working Women:
- This campaign seeks to alleviate sexual harassment in the workplace and address other issues of concern to women workers through campaigns, worker education, reform of local laws, judicial advocacy, and workplace monitoring.
Creating a Sweatfree World:
- Through this campaign, the ILRF seeks to challenge sweatshop conditions globally, promote ethical alternatives and advocate for labor rights in US trade policy. The ILRF also has a campaign targeting Wal-Mart for abuse of workers’ rights in their suppliers’ factories. ILRFs newest focus is on sweatshops in the fields as the food and agricultural supply chains become increasingly consolidated and riddled with unimaginable labor rights violations. The Fairness in Flowers campaign raises awareness in the US about labor rights violations and health and safety problems in the cut flower industry.
Freedom at Work:
- Throughout the world, labor activists are targets of repression for their organizing efforts. ILRF, in collaboration with unions and activist groups, campaigns to fight violence against trade union leaders globally and to protect the right of workers to organize and collectively bargain. We participate in urgent actions to support unions, especially in the Philippines and Colombia which are two of the most dangerous countries for trade unionists.
ILRF’s SUCCESS: Highlights from the Last Two Decades: … (full long text about).