The American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS), better known as the Solidarity Center, is a non-profit organization established in 1997 by the AFL-CIO, the labor federation that represents 9 million working men and women in the United States, to assist unions and workers around the world. The Solidarity Center was created through the consolidation of four labor institutes: the American Institute for Free Labor Development, the Asian-American Free Labor Institute, the African-American Labor Center, and the Free Trade Union Institute. Its stated mission is to help build a global labor movement by strengthening the economic and political power of workers around the world through effective, independent, and democratic unions.

The American labor movement has supported workers abroad since its birth more than a century ago. Along with other civil society organizations, it has received U.S. government funding to promote the cause of workers and the development of democratic trade unions in countries all over the world. Most of the Solidarity Center’s funding comes from the U.S. government, mainly from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. Department of Labor. It also receives funding from the AFL-CIO itself and other organizations.

Venezuela

The Solidarity Center’s partners in Venezuela include the Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CTV), which represents more than 1 million workers in 52 national and 25 regional federations and more than 2,000 local unions. The CTV is affiliated with the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). Two additional union federations, the Bolivarian Workers Front (FBT) and the Union Nacional de Trabajadores de Venezuela (UNT), have also recently been formed. The UNT is the government-designated representative before the International Labor Organization (ILO) and other international bodies. Although the government has refused to recognize the CTV as a worker representative, the federation continues to defend its members and bargain on their behalf. Critics of the Solidarity Center accuse the CTV of “anti-government” activities. Senior staff at the Solidarity Center counter that the organization does not engage in internal politics, focusing purely on worker rights issues.

In 2002 and 2003, the center ran NED-funded labor programs on collective bargaining, union elections, and worker rights with the CTV and a few smaller labor organizations. The annual budget of more than $100,000 included support to train union leaders for new leadership posts, modify union statutes to allow for broader representation, and carry out union elections. The program also focused on developing technical collective bargaining skills, broadening issues included in bargaining, surveying members more extensively, and designing bargaining plans to ensure sustainable agreements for workers. NED provided other alleged “anti-government” civil society organizations in Venezuela with similar funding.

Haiti

In 2003, the Solidarity Center issued a report on worker rights in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The report, Equation: The Labor Code and Worker Rights in Haiti, examined recent and past attempts to reform the Haitian labor code, analyzed the potential impact of proposed legislation, and recommended a labor law reform process that would take workers’ needs and priorities into account. Based on interviews conducted in 1999 and 2000 with leaders and activists from several trade unions and worker organizations in Haiti, including Batay Ouvriye, the report documented widespread, serious worker rights violations, a weak Labor Code, and the negative impact on worker rights and living conditions of donor policies toward Haiti. It called for “a labor law reform process that would integrate and serve the needs and priorities of workers in both the formal and informal economies.”

When textile manufacturer Grupo M, the Dominican Republic’s largest employer, applied to the International Finance Corporation (the World Bank’s private sector lending arm) for a $20 million loan to open a factory on the Haiti-Dominican border, the Solidarity Center, the ICFTU, the AFL-CIO, and the Dominican Federation of Free Trade Zone Workers (FEDOTRAZONAS) worked together to condition the loan on respect for worker rights, including the right to form a union. FEDOTRAZONAS leaders hoped that the labor conditionality would help them in their own longstanding fight for a union of Grupo M workers in the Dominican Republic. But Grupo M violated the condition, firing more than 300 Haitian workers who had participated in a work stoppage during their organizing campaign. Batay Ouvriye became involved in the struggle.

In 2004, the Solidarity Center began to work with Batay Ouvriye to support the efforts of free trade zone workers to organize and bargain collectively. Batay Ouvriye has criticized the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and what it considers the resulting poverty for Haitian citizens. Critics of the Solidarity Center have accused it of continuing the Cold War policies of its predecessor institute, AIFLD, to undermine the Aristide administration. Solidarity Center supporters maintain that such accusations are baseless and that promoting worker rights is the organization’s sole agenda.

Mass mobilization and struggle of the workers, coupled with an outpouring of international labor solidarity, forced the company to rehire the workers and recognize the union. In December 2005, more than 800 Grupo M workers ratified a groundbreaking contract with Grupo M. The three-year contract is the first ever in a Haitian FTZ and one of only a handful in the country.

Following the Haiti victory, the World Bank adopted a performance standard that obliges all companies receiving loans from the IFC to abide by the International Labor Organization’s core labor standards: freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, and prohibitions against the use of forced labor, child labor, and discriminatory practices. Companies also must observe health and safety standards, provide protection for contract workers, and set a policy for managing workforce reductions.

Other Program Areas

The Solidarity Center also has programs in other countries in Latin America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

References

AFL-CIO