We continue to collaborate with long-term partners in Central America and Mexico who are defending workers’ rights and promoting safe and healthy workplaces. For example, the Independent Monitoring Team of Honduras (EMIH) hosts an online Ergonomics School for union members that provides training on identifying non-compliance with national COVID-19 health protocols in their factories. See their latest bulletin (in Spanish) here. In September, we co-sponsored with the Solidarity Center and Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) a webinar on the impact of COVID-19 on the maquila industry and workers for over 60 participants from Central American unions, women’s organizations and labour experts. On December 2, as part of our work with the multi-stakeholder Americas Group, we hosted an educational for 21 apparel brands and manufacturers on gender-based violence and sexual harassment at the workplace. It featured lessons from a pioneering initiative in Lesotho involving four brands, a major supplier factory, the WRC, national unions and women’s organizations. As part of the educational, our Salvadoran partner CEDM, a coalition of labour and women’s organizations, provided a sobering overview of the increased risks of violence facing women at the workplace, in transport and in their communities in this era of COVID-19. You can access an excellent article on the Lesotho initiative here. |