Project MUSE®: International Union Rights - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/847
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in International Union Rights.daily12026-05-19T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 16 (2009) through current issue
Latest Articles: International Union RightsTWOProject MUSE®International Union Rights2308-51421018-5909Latest articles in International Union Rights. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Editorial: Trade Unions and Migrant Workers
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/976479
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Luc Triangle opens this edition of IUR journal with recognition that around the world migrant workers “perform essential work that keeps societies functioning”. The “structural conditions that exclude migrant workers from labour rights” he argues, “are the same conditions that allow precarious work and union-busting to flourish”, and the alignment of interests between migrant workers and trade unions is so strong that “organising migrant workers is central to the future of democratic trade unionism”. The challenge, as Triangle says, is thus one that cuts across all areas of trade union activity, but one of the most challenging and high-profile areas concerns the role of migrant workers in construction projects for
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-19T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/847/image/coversmallEditorial: Trade Unions and Migrant Workers2025-12-09text/htmlen-USEditorial: Trade Unions and Migrant Workers2025-12-092025TWOProject MUSE®47992026-05-19T00:00:00-05:002025-12-09Organising migrant workers: For trade union democracy and fairer societies for all
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/976480
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“Trade union power lies in unity, and there can be no unity without inclusion. When we organise workers in the most precarious situations, we organise for all. The future of democratic unionism depends on making migrant rights a central priority - not a side issue”.Migrant workers are indispensable to the global economy. From domestic and care work to construction, agriculture, manufacturing, transport and hospitality, they perform essential work that keeps societies functioning. And yet, too often, they are denied the rights, protections, and recognition extended to other workers. They are treated not as equal contributors to the workforce, but as disposable, exploitable and invisible.This is a crisis not of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-19T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/847/image/coversmallOrganising migrant workers: For trade union democracy and fairer societies for all2025-12-09text/htmlen-USOrganising migrant workers: For trade union democracy and fairer societies for all2025-12-092025TWOProject MUSE®208592026-05-19T00:00:00-05:002025-12-09Migrant Workers, Mega-Sporting Events, and the Struggle for Freedom on the Road to the 2034 World Cup
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/976481
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The structures that host the world’s most celebrated sporting events, such as the stadiums, transport systems, roads, hotels and entire new urban districts, are built by construction workers, often of migrant origins. Their contribution is essential, yet their rights are routinely suppressed, their voices silenced, and their lives rendered invisible behind the spectacle. Global sports present themselves as expressions of unity and shared humanity, but for the workers who labour under the most precarious conditions, the experience is one of denial, fear, and restrictions on freedom.Human rights are universal by definition. All human beings have them. Migrant workers possess them no less than anyone else. Yet, their
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-19T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/847/image/coversmallMigrant Workers, Mega-Sporting Events, and the Struggle for Freedom on the Road to the 2034 World Cup2025-12-09text/htmlen-USMigrant Workers, Mega-Sporting Events, and the Struggle for Freedom on the Road to the 2034 World Cup2025-12-092025TWOProject MUSE®208712026-05-19T00:00:00-05:002025-12-09US Farmworkers Resist Low Wages and Immigration Raids
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/976482
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Immigration enforcement in the United States does not exist on its own. It has a function in a larger system that serves corporate economic interests by providing the labour employers need. Immigrant labour is more vital than ever to many industries. More than 50 percent of the entire agricultural workforce in the country is undocumented, and the list of other industries that rely on immigrant labour is long: meatpacking, some construction jobs, building cleaning, health care, restaurants and retail, hotels, and more.President Donald Trump is not free to eliminate this workforce. Within months of his first inauguration in 2017, agribusiness executives were already meeting with him to ensure that threats of a closed
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-19T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/847/image/coversmallUS Farmworkers Resist Low Wages and Immigration Raids2025-12-09text/htmlen-USUS Farmworkers Resist Low Wages and Immigration Raids2025-12-092025TWOProject MUSE®240832026-05-19T00:00:00-05:002025-12-09Evidence from Malaysia: Why a Strong Convention to Protect Migrant Domestic Workers is Needed
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/976483
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Global migration has increased rapidly. In 2024, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs estimated 304 million international migrants, nearly doubling since 1990 (International Migrant Stock 2024). Asia hosts about 92.2 million, with 23.6 million from Southeast Asia living abroad (ASEAN, n.d.). Key migration corridors in Southeast Asia include Cambodia and Myanmar to Thailand, and Indonesia and the Philippines to Malaysia and Singapore. Women now make up 48 percent of intra-ASEAN migrant workers, up 2 percent over three decades, reflecting the feminisation of migration (Mega and Carl, 2022). Domestic work is a leading sector for migrant women, especially in Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong.In
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-19T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/847/image/coversmallEvidence from Malaysia: Why a Strong Convention to Protect Migrant Domestic Workers is Needed2025-12-09text/htmlen-USEvidence from Malaysia: Why a Strong Convention to Protect Migrant Domestic Workers is Needed2025-12-092025TWOProject MUSE®367882026-05-19T00:00:00-05:002025-12-09ICTUR in Action | Interventions
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/976484
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Ali Mammeri, president of the National Union of Civil Servants in Culture and Art (SNFC), was sentenced to 15 years in prison by the Oum El Bouaghi Court of First Instance following his arrest on 19 March. Amnesty International says that the conviction relied on a confession obtained under violence and duress and the NGO has stated that the charges are “solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of association and expression in the context of his trade union activities, by publicly defending human rights and during private communications with exiled activists”. The charges include “apology for terrorism” and “dissemination of classified information”. The SNFC is associated with the small COSYFOP
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-19T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/847/image/coversmallICTUR in Action | Interventions2025-12-09text/htmlen-USICTUR in Action | Interventions2025-12-092025TWOProject MUSE®101782026-05-19T00:00:00-05:002025-12-09The Borealis Case: Lessons Learned from the Biggest Case of Human Trafficking in Belgium
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/976485
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In early summer 2022, a major case of human trafficking and economic exploitation came to light in the port of Antwerp (Belgium).The case exposed the weaknesses of existing policies and legislation on human trafficking. It also revealed the ambivalent stance of the authorities, who continue to prioritise economic interests despite strong rhetoric against social dumping.But above all, this was one of the rare cases in which tangible results were achieved—results that deserve to be recognised and built upon. The case highlights the vital role trade unions can and must play in safeguarding the rights of migrant workers, addressing the challenges they face, and uniting workers’ interests.Three years later, we look back
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-19T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/847/image/coversmallThe Borealis Case: Lessons Learned from the Biggest Case of Human Trafficking in Belgium2025-12-09text/htmlen-USThe Borealis Case: Lessons Learned from the Biggest Case of Human Trafficking in Belgium2025-12-092025TWOProject MUSE®111552026-05-19T00:00:00-05:002025-12-09Flag Day: Trade Unions and Migrant Workers in Britain and Gibraltar
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/976486
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Arriving in Gibraltar, there is a post-colonial aesthetic that harks back to a uniquely British sense of identity. “Helmeted bobbies, pubs, fish and chip shops, curry houses, red telephone boxes and union flags on public buildings” are all evidence, wrote Giles Tremlett in The Guardian, “of the Gibraltarians’ pride in their Britishness”1. This was sixteen years ago, just months after we were summoned to Gibraltar by the local TWGU union (now part of Unite) to investigate allegations of systemic racism and exclusion impacting Moroccan union members (and the wider Moroccan community). The image of Britishness that was on display when we visited seemed nostalgic and somewhat conservative, but it made sense; just a few
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-19T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/847/image/coversmallFlag Day: Trade Unions and Migrant Workers in Britain and Gibraltar2025-12-09text/htmlen-USFlag Day: Trade Unions and Migrant Workers in Britain and Gibraltar2025-12-092025TWOProject MUSE®279442026-05-19T00:00:00-05:002025-12-09Indian trade unions and migrant workers
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/976487
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Nobody knows the numbers involved, but India has at least 140 million internal migrants, or interstate migrant workers as they are known in the country1. Every year, workers migrate within India because they have very poor livelihood options in their home areas. These workers travel from states mainly in the east of the country, especially Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and the Eastern areas of Uttar Pradesh; this area is known as Purvanchali2. Some writers believe it has never recovered from being the main region for opium growing, which was the largest source of income for the East India Company, and the British Raj3. According to the 2011 Census, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh accounted for around
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-19T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/847/image/coversmallIndian trade unions and migrant workers2025-12-09text/htmlen-USIndian trade unions and migrant workers2025-12-092025TWOProject MUSE®327482026-05-19T00:00:00-05:002025-12-09The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Employment Relation ed. by Klaus Lörcher, Niklas Bruun and Ana Teresa Ribeiro (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/976488
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The United High Commissioner for Human Rights recently noted that, ‘[a]t this testing time, we need governments and societies to stand up for human rights, in word and deed’1. Meanwhile, the International Trade Union Confederation Global Rights Index 2025 found that ‘workers’ rights are in free fall across every continent’ with 87 per cent of countries violating the right to strike and 80 per cent of countries the right to collective bargaining2.The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Employment Relation edited by Klaus Lörcher, Niklas Bruun and Ana Teresa Ribeiro, a book billed as ‘the first comprehensive academic treatment of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-19T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/847/image/coversmallThe International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Employment Relation ed. by Klaus Lörcher, Niklas Bruun and Ana Teresa Ribeiro (review)2025-12-09text/htmlen-USThe International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Employment Relation ed. by Klaus Lörcher, Niklas Bruun and Ana Teresa Ribeiro (review)2025-12-092025TWOProject MUSE®226102026-05-19T00:00:00-05:002025-12-09Worldwide
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/976489
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In October, the interim Government of Bangladesh announced that charges against 48,000 garment workers relating to large scale garment sector wage protests in 2023 have now been dropped. The mass prosecutions were originally backed by both factory owners and the State though unions and activists have questioned the quality of evidence raised against individuals.Also in October, the trade union law has (again) been changed, though as has been the case with numerous previous reforms, the changes fail to address the most serious problems. The latest tweak changes the current threshold of 20 percent support for founding a workplace union to a minimum of 20 workers. This raises the threshold for workplaces that employ
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-19T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/847/image/coversmallWorldwide2025-12-09text/htmlen-USWorldwide2025-12-092025TWOProject MUSE®139222026-05-19T00:00:00-05:002025-12-09