Championing worker’s rights and better working conditions

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As the National Consumers League (NCL) celebrates 125 years and the Fair Labor Association (FLA) celebrates 25 years, it’s a great time to reflect on how far both organizations have come and how our collaboration continues to promote better conditions for workers.

The organization I lead, FLA, owes its beginnings to the intense efforts by NCL, which worked with labor unions, university students, companies, universities, human rights organizations, and the U.S. government to reach an unprecedented agreement—the Apparel Industry Partnership—to address the problem of sweatshop labor in the United States and throughout the world.

Rapidly changing trade patterns meant that global supply chains were moving offshore to places where workers had few, if any, protections. NCL took on the co-chair role at the Apparel Industry Partnership and helped forge labor standards for global supply chains, including respect for freedom of association, a crackdown on child labor, a cap on employer-mandated overtime hours, and more. This agreement also mandated the creation of an association that would, among other things, “develop a reliable, independent means to provide for public confidence” that companies were abiding by these standards. In 1999, NCL was present for the creation of the FLA, and has been a staunch supporter of us from the beginning.

Image provided by the Fair Labor Association

It is no surprise that NCL was at the center of an effort to end sweatshop abuses. For the past 125 years, the League has been a driving force for improved working conditions. In fact, NCL’s original constitution declared that “goods should be produced and distributed at reasonable prices and in adequate quantity, but under fair, safe, and healthy working conditions that foster quality products for consumers and a decent standard of living for workers.”

I am very proud of the long-standing alliance between NCL and FLA. NCL CEO Sally Greenberg is a valued member of the FLA’s board of directors, and our two organizations continue to collaborate on many vitally important issues, including the ongoing battle against child labor in the United States and worldwide. The alignment of our missions and labor values allows us to multiply the impact of our respective organizations.

A great deal of work remains to be done to ensure that all workers can earn a living wage; have the right to bargain collectively for improved wages, benefits, and working conditions; are free from discriminatory practices in hiring and promotions; and have adequate family and medical leave policies that improve productivity and protect health and well-being.

We look forward to deepening our partnership with NCL on these and many other issues that support workers. Our partnership is an important catalyst for change, and we’ve only just begun.

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Jeff Vockrodt is President and CEO of the Fair Labor Association (FLA). 

One fair wage and NCL are making headlines!

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With the much-appreciated support of the National Consumers League, One Fair Wage is on the precipice of historic change. After years of organizing and building power with hundreds of thousands of restaurant and service workers, and ‘high road’ restaurant owners, to raise wages and end the subminimum wage for tipped workers (which is still $2.13 an hour), One Fair Wage has documented a massive upheaval in the restaurant industry that is driving change. More than 1 million workers have left the industry, and thousands of restaurants are raising wages to recruit staff.

To take advantage of this historic moment, One Fair Wage has launched the 25 by 250 campaign, which calls for raising wages and ending subminimum wages in 25 states by the United States’ 250th Anniversary in 2026. With recent victories in Washington, DC; Chicago; and Michigan, our campaign and ballot initiatives have become even more critical given recent polling showing that the top issue for young people, people of color, and other unlikely voters in 2024 is “the rising cost of living” and “jobs with living wages.”

With nearly 14 million workers, the restaurant industry has been one of the largest and fastest-growing sectors of the U.S. economy, but it has also been one of the lowest-paying for generations. A legacy of slavery, the subminimum wage for tipped workers, was always a source of poverty, racial inequity, and sexual harassment for millions of service workers nationwide as well as a source of liability for restaurant owners. Data showed that tipped restaurant workers of color earned at least $5 an hour less than their white counterparts due to segregation into lower- tipping establishments and implicit bias in tipping from customers.

Meanwhile, seven states have always required a full minimum wage with tips on top—AK, CA, MN, MT, NV, OR, and WA. These states have the same or higher restaurant sales, small business growth rates, menu prices, overall industry job growth rates, and tipping averages as the states with a subminimum wage for tipped workers. Workers in these seven states report that providing them with a full minimum wage and reducing their complete dependence on tips also reduces sexual harassment and racial inequities as a result, as dependence on tips makes workers vulnerable to harassment and bias from customers.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this crisis. We uplifted the voices and data from thousands of service workers who reported reduced tips and increased customer hostility and harassment and then left the industry in a mass exodus. To date, we have documented that 1.2 million workers have left the restaurant industry. With support from the Gates Foundation, we documented the huge industry shift following that exodus, in which thousands of restaurants voluntarily transitioned to paying a full minimum wage for tipped workers during the pandemic in order to recruit staff.

This upheaval has led us to the precipice of policy change, in which there is great momentum for One Fair Wage in multiple states. With the support of the NCL, we won One Fair Wage and a 300% wage increase for service workers on the ballot with a 75% margin in Washington, DC, on November 8, 2022. We also won a 50% wage increase for 100,000 service workers in the city of Chicago with a 36 to 10 vote. In July 2024, Michigan became the first state in 40 years and the first state east of the Mississippi to end the subminimum wage for tipped workers. This historic move is a result of the momentum gained following the pandemic when the racial inequities of the subminimum wage were exposed and exacerbated.

We expect many more states to follow, and have already completed signature collection to put One Fair Wage on the ballot in Massachusetts, and are moving One Fair Wage as policy in Baltimore, MD. We are also advancing bills and ballot measures in CO, NJ, NY, and OH and many more states in 2025 and 2026.

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Saru Jayaraman is President of One Fair Wage and Director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

The Child Labor Coalition announces the 2024 Congressional Champions of Child Labor Protections for taking bold action against child labor exploitation

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October 31, 2024

Contact: Reid Maki (202) 207-2820, reidm@nclnet.org

WASHINGTON, DC – The Child Labor Coalition (CLC) is proud to announce the 25 recipients of the 2024 Congressional Champions of Child Labor Protections who have taken a stand against the troubling rise of child labor exploitation during the 118th Congress. During a period in which child workers were increasingly found working illegally in factory settings across the U.S., these legislators responded by strengthening child labor protections – either by introducing new legislation or cosponsoring child labor bills endorsed by the Child Labor Coalition.

“Over the last two years, child labor protections have faced unprecedented threats as over 30 states sought to weaken regulations on the hours children can work and the types of hazardous work children can perform,” says Reid Maki, Director of Child Labor Advocacy at the Child Labor Coalition.

“We are fortunate these stalwart lawmakers worked to strengthen child labor protections and enforcement,” says CLC chair Sally Greenberg, who is also the CEO of the National Consumers League. “These bills provide creative and much-needed solutions to our widespread child labor problem.”

Recent Department of Labor data show child labor violations have soared by 472% between 2015 and 2023, highlighting cases where minors are subjected to grueling hours, hazardous work environments, and, in some tragic cases, loss of limbs and fatalities. Against this backdrop, these 25 Congressional Champions have supported legislation aimed at protecting child laborers and ensuring compliance with federal child labor laws.

Congress responded robustly with at least eight pieces of legislation addressing child labor that the CLC has endorsed. “Much of this legislation would significantly increase civil monetary fines for child labor violations – not just by a little, but often by a factor of 10,” says CLC’s Maki. “We saw several innovative and comprehensive responses in bills like “Children Harmed in Life-Threatening or Dangerous (CHILD) Labor Act of 2023, by Senator Casey (D-PA) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT). Similarly, H.R. 4440, the “Protecting Children Act” by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), called for innovative and sweeping strategies against child labor.

Congress also sought to protect exploited child farmworkers with “The Children’s Act for Responsible Employment and Farm Safety,” introduced by Raul Ruiz (D-CA) in the House and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) in the Senate. “This was the first Senate bill to protect vulnerable child farmworkers in two decades,” said Maki.

Child labor on U.S. tobacco farms would be banned by the “Children Don’t Belong on Tobacco Farms Act,” from Senator Durbin and Rep. DeLauro.  “Child tobacco workers are subjected to toxic nicotine levels while they work. We’re so grateful that Senator Durbin (D-IL) and Rep. DeLauro (D-CT) are trying to tackle this long-standing problem,” said Greenberg.

The CLC, representing 36 dedicated organizations, including Human Rights Watch and America’s largest union, the National Education Association, has named seven Senators and 18 members of the House Representatives as the 2024 Congressional Champions of Child Labor Protections.

We are recognizing five members of the Senate for introducing legislation to improve child labor enforcement efforts or increase child labor protections:

  • Corey Booker (D-NJ)
  • Robert Casey (D-PA)
  • Richard Durbin (D-IL)
  • Ben Ray Luján (D-NM)
  • Brian Schatz (D-HI)

Two senators are recognized for cosponsoring at least three bills endorsed by the CLC:

  • Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)
  • Jack Reed (D-RI)

In the House, the CLC recognizes six members for introducing child labor legislation endorsed by the coalition:

  • Greg Casar (D-TX)
  • Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
  • Dan Kildee (D-MI)
  • Raul Ruiz (D-CA)
  • Hillary Scholten (D-MI)
  • Bobby Scott (D-VA)

The coalition also recognizes 12 members for each cosponsoring five child labor five bills. These members are:

  • Alma Adams (D-NC)
  • Judy Chu (D-CA)
  • Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA)
  • Jesus “Chuy” Garcia (D-IL)
  • Seth Magaziner (D-RI)
  • Morgan McGarvey (D-KY)
  • James McGovern (D-MA)
  • Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC)
  • Mark Pocan (D-WI)
  • Linda Sanchez (D-CA)
  • Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
  • Shri Thanedar (D-MI)

The CLC’s endorsed child labor legislation in the 118th Congress can be found here. The congressional session also saw the creation of the Child Labor Prevention Task Force, under the leadership of Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI) and Hillary Scholten (D-MI). “We very much hope to see this important legislative unit continue its work in the 119th Congress,” said Maki. “We encourage other members to join the Task Force and to lend their support to child labor legislation.”

The CLC looks forward to working with many of these congressional child labor heroes in the 119th Congress.

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About The Child Labor Coalition (CLC)

In its 35th year, The Child Labor Coalition strives to reduce exploitative child labor in the United States and abroad, bringing together 36 groups to create a powerful voice that promotes public education, research, and advocacy to end child labor, child marriage, and child trafficking.

A member list can be found here.

About the National Consumers League (NCL) 

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

The return of Striketober and why consumers should care

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By Eden Iscil, Public Policy Manager

The National Consumers League has a long history of fighting for both consumers and workers alike. Founded 124 years ago, NCL’s first major policy accomplishments included the establishment of minimum wage laws and protections around child labor. In support of these goals, much of the League’s early years were centered around consumer boycotts of companies that treated their employees unfairly.

Today, NCL’s support of workers’ rights remains just as critical as we find ourselves in another October with truly historic labor action. Two years after “Striketober,” 75,000 healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente walked off the job in the largest healthcare strike in history largely due to low pay and understaffing. At the same time, 160,000 actors belonging to SAG-AFTRA and 25,000 members of the United Auto Workers continue to strike. The Writers Guild of America recently secured significant gains after a months-long writers’ stoppage, and UPS agreed to better contracts for drivers after 340,000 Teamsters threatened to withhold their labor.

Beyond the benefits for all workers that the presence of strong unions provides, it’s also in consumers’ self-interest to support workers agitating for better employment terms. As consumers, we rely on these employees to safely fly passengers across the country, provide critical healthcare services, and raise the alarm over unsafe food production. In addition to the harm that results from jeopardizing workers’ safety, poor working conditions can lead to indefinite closures, potentially reducing the amount of product on the shelves. In all of these cases, unions help consumers by advocating for adequate staffing levels to prevent worker burnout, securing healthy workplace environments, and ensuring robust whistle-blower protections.

Even for less perilous industries (i.e. not flying a plane or driving a truck), consumers should support workers fighting for better employment conditions if only to safeguard the continuation of their favorite products. The arts—including television, movies, and music—provide invaluable comfort and entertainment, in addition to awakening us to new perspectives, ideas, and values. Despite consumers’ intense love for these forms of entertainment, writers, actors, and musicians continue to struggle in their fields for fair compensation, something that can threaten (or at the very least, doesn’t promote) the future creation of high-quality art.

Industry has always threatened to raise prices if they are forced to pay their employees more. Consumers should understand that this is a choice corporate executives can make—but it is not the only possible outcome. Rather than price gouging consumers, companies can reduce executive compensation to offset the costs of fair wages. General Motors, one of the targets of the UAW strike, pays its CEO 362 times what it pays its median worker. Starbucks, a company infamous for its illegal union-busting, paid its former CEO nearly 1,400 times what it paid its median employee in 2022.

For this year’s resurgence of Striketober, consumers should do their part in supporting workers. Try purchasing union-made goods, shopping at worker-owned cooperatives (a directory of local co-ops can be found here while a list of large chains is viewable here), and supporting non-profit news organizations.

Guest Blog: The FABRIC act will address garment industry workplace concerns

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By Rebecca Ballard

Last year the first ever federal fashion bill, The FABRIC Act, was introduced in Congress, and it will be reintroduced this September. However, the intersection between labor rights, legislation, and the garment industry is far from new. The industry has been tied to labor abuses since before our country’s founding; it was cotton that enabled the United States to reach global economic prominence, and issues with forced labor in fashion continue to this day. And it is not just labor concerns linked to fashion, but key labor achievements as well. Many of the labor laws that govern our lives and workplaces took root in the garment industry.

As a guest blogger for NCL and a longtime partner with the organization, I am excited to briefly share the fascinating history linking the garment industry and labor movements, some of the present-day issues in the industry, and even an opportunity to advocate for change this year.

The Industrial Revolution and the U.S. Fashion Industry

The industrial revolution gave rise to the fashion industry as we know it today, bringing innovation and affordable mass-produced items as well as widespread workplace labor abuses, sweatshop conditions, and pollution. In fact, the beginning of the U.S. industrial revolution is often cited as the opening of a textile mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1793. During the Industrial Revolution we saw women, including recent immigrants, and children take jobs in textile mills to supplement family income. Many of these workers were exploited, toiling sometimes for 16 hours a day during high demand periods, for a subsistence income; all too often they were subject to wage theft.

But through this work, many women garment workers also achieved a measure of independence, leaving homes and families, and some used that newfound independence to join social activist movements and advocate for improved labor conditions. Female workers in Lowell, Massachusetts, for example, formed America’s first women’s union in the 1830s, which focused on maximum hours laws, including a 10 hour work day and higher wages, and they conducted one of the first major labor strikes in this nation’s history. Workers in New York’s sweatshops were victims of harassment, wage theft, and terrible conditions, and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America unions formed to demand labor reforms there in the early 1900s.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire and Subsequent Labor Reforms 

Just as unions were gaining strength, the United States saw a devastating example of the incredible harms that can take place in the garment industry. Near closing time on March 25, 1911, the factory fire that broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory killed 146 workers, many of whom were immigrant women and girls. The building’s only fire escape building had collapsed during the rescue effort. Machinery and tables crushed workers, while locked doors trapped them, and there were only a few buckets of water to douse the flames. Firefighter ladders were too short to reach the 9th floor and safety nets ripped. The survivors from the 500-plus Triangle Shirtwaist Factory recounted the horrors they witnessed, including their fellow workers leaping to their deaths from the 9th floor rather than being burned alive. Some victims were as young as 14 years old.

In New York state, this tragedy prompted the transformation of the state’s labor and fire codes, thirty-six new state laws, and increased labor funding. The New Deal era under President Franklin Roosevelt saw adoption of similar legislation at the federal level nearly 20 years later with the support of some of these same reformers, like Frances Perkins who witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire herself and later became the Secretary of Labor under President Roosevelt. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, country-wise fire and safety laws, and the Fair Labor Standards Act could be said to have arisen from laws enacted in New York after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.

Following the lead of women’s suffrage groups, and often in concert with women’s rights leaders, a number of trade unions formed to support the rights of garment workers. Roosevelt’s New Deal offered legal protection to unions, and through union gains and New Deal programs sweatshop conditions lessened and wages increased. However this brief period of reforms for workers in the US garment industry did not continue when the industry expanded and much of the industry moved abroad.

In addition to labor issues, the modern garment industry continues the environmental degradation that started during the industrial revolution. The industry today is playing a role in climate change and not on track to meet key climate goals and operate within planetary boundaries in its current form. Overproduction as well as over-purchasing are both extreme, and there are presently enough clothes on our planet to clothe six generations of people. Waste is often exported to other countries, hurting local economies and climates through waste colonialism. The industry continues to be powered by coal and uses toxic chemicals that are dangerous for workers, wearers, and our planet. Water usage is also highly problematic. For example, it takes over 2,000 liters of water to make just one t-shirt, around as much as one person drinks in three years. The water used in clothing creation, as well as clothing use, is often filled with microfibers that reach even the depths of our oceans and cause great harm to planetary ecosystems.

California Legislation

Sweatshops reemerged in the 1960s due to a range of forces in the U.S. and abroad: the changing retail industry, the growing global economy, increased contracting, and a large number of immigrant workers in the U.S. In the 1970s, manufacturers began outsourcing production to other countries to lower labor costs and employ a more compliant, non-union worker base. Despite increased consumption and a growing population, the number of U.S.-based garment workers dropped 37 percent, from 1.2 million in 1970 to 760,000 in 1995.

When sweatshops reemerged on U.S. soil they brought with them many horrific practices.  In California in the 1990s, the El Monte sweatshop, was subject to a raid that uncovered workers held behind fences surrounded by razor wire. These modern-day sweatshops exposed brutal conditions, with many tricked into accepting U.S. employment while living in other countries and once here being subject to debt bondage, threats of harm to them or their families, and violations of wage and hour codes. 

The 2021 California’s Garment Worker Protection Act (SB 62) enacted many statewide reforms for the industry in the state with the greatest number of garment workers. This landmark law aims to end wage theft and the payment of less than a minimum wage to garment workers by ending the piece rate of payment and creating liability for contractors for the full amount of unpaid wages and reimbursement of expenses, no matter how many layers of contracting are used. It also aims to enhance workplace safety by having garment workers no longer need to work at unsafe speeds to complete as many items as possible each day to reach a fair rate of pay.

The FABRIC Act

On the federal level, promising reforms include the first federal fashion industry bill, The Fashioning Accountability and Building Real Institution Change (FABRIC) Act, which was introduced in 2022 and will be reintroduced this September. A federal Lobby Day on September 12th is planned in partnership with national worker rights and sustainable fashion NGOs. The FABRIC Act follows in the footsteps of California’s SB62 by eliminating the piece rate and creating joint and several liability for violations of the law.  The FABRIC Act also creates a national garment manufacturing registry and incentivizes domestic production through a $40 million garment manufacturing grant program and reshoring tax credits. Anyone is welcome to be a part of the Lobby Day, and can sign up to volunteer here.

National Consumers League supports the SAG-AFTRA strike

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August 4, 2023

Media contact: National Consumers League – Katie Brown, katie@nclnet.org, 202-823-8442

Washington, D.C. – The National Consumers League supports the SAG-AFTRA nationwide strike announced on July 14, 2023 against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. After a union wide vote authorized the strike with 97.7% voting yes, more than 150,000 movie, theater, and streaming actors have gone on strike.  AMPTP represents over 350 American television and film production companies, including Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros, ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, Netflix, Apple TV+, and Amazon.

SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher has been outspoken about the union’s frustration with the studios and networks.  “The Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers’ (AMPTP) responses to the union’s most important proposals have been insulting and disrespectful of our massive contributions to this industry,” Drescher and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland have said.

The strike started after negotiations with AMPTP failed, despite SAG-AFTRA’s very reasonable demands:

  • Residual payments from streaming services based on viewership numbers
  • Streaming services won’t release statistics on streaming numbers to the union.
  • Protections and restitution for studios using Artificial Intelligence to reproduce an actor’s likeness
  • More regulation on “Self Taped Auditions” in which actors film their own auditions instead of within a casting studio. SAG-AFTRA says this creates an unfair burden being placed on actors
  • Increased contributions to pension, health and welfare funds.
  • Increased pay across the board and a living wage for those who work in the industry.

This strike coincides with the Writers Guild of America’s strike against the AMPTP; NCL also supports that group of writers who are striking. This marks the first time in 63 years that that both of these major unions have been forced to simultaneously go on strike.

The issues facing SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America are almost identical: workers in this industry have seen their pay slowly diminished by inflation during the last several years, they face a reduction in residuals, less working time for shows, and the threat of artificial intelligence to replace actual writers and editors.

Sally Greenberg, NCL’s CEO, explained the reason for her organization’s support. “We have always been pro worker and this strike is no exception, except that the disparity in pay between industry executives and performers is more shocking than ever. Disney CEO Bob Iger’s board of directors handed him a two-year $27-million-per-year contract extension the day before the vote. Other studio executives make many millions as well, and yet they expect performers and writers in the industry – whose creativity is responsible for the success of these shows – to work for diminishing salaries and reduced benefits such that many cannot earn a living wage. The AMPTP refuses to even consider ideas like a plan for actors to participate in streaming revenue, for example.”

NCL also recognizes the strong solidarity that these striking performers have shown. For weeks, hundreds have kept the picket lines active at major AMPTP locations. Several major Hollywood SAG-AFTRA members have given generous donations in the millions to support striking performers who may not be able to afford rent or food due being shut out of their occupation by the AMPTP. Some of these individuals include Leonardo DiCaprio, Nicole Kidman, Dwayne Johnson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Matt Damon.

We also include below the statement of AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler in support of the performers represented by SAG-AFTRA.

AFL-CIO Statement on SAG-AFTRA

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About the National Consumers League (NCL)
The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization.  Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad.  For more information, visit nclnet.org.

NCL supports FTC efforts to ban non-compete clauses

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January 6, 2023

Media contact: National Consumers League – Katie Brown, katie@nclnet.org, 202-823-8442

WASHINGTON DC. – The National Consumers League (NCL), the nation’s pioneering consumer and worker advocacy organization, applauds the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) initiative to ban non-compete clauses. Such provisions prevent employees from taking new jobs in the same industry, violating free-market values and dampening fair competition. 

The following statement is attributable to NCL Chief Executive Officer, Sally Greenberg: 

“Non-compete clauses harm workers by blocking them from seeking better wages and working conditions. They also reduce market competition by barring other businesses from attracting talent and stopping employees from setting up their own shops. The FTC’s proposed ban on non-compete clauses is a significant step towards a more fair and free economy for all.

Allowing the unrestricted movement of labor will benefit consumers in addition to workers and competitive businesses. NCL has long believed that consumers stand to gain when purchasing goods and services provided by a healthy and robust workforce. We look forward to supporting the FTC’s efforts to prohibit non-compete clauses across the country.”

The FTC estimates that once its ban on non-compete clauses goes into effect, workers’ earnings would increase by nearly $300 billion per year, creating new opportunities for approximately 30 million individuals. Furthermore, these unjust clauses harm all incomes groups, with a 2019 report finding that 29% of workplaces offering an average hourly pay under $13.00 were subjecting their employees to a non-compete agreement. 

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About the National Consumers League (NCL)
The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization.  Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad.  For more information, visit https://nclnet.org.

Dispatches from Durban: May 15-20, 2022

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Reflections on the 5th Global Conference on the elimination of child labour in Durban, South Africa: May 15-20, 2022

Reid Maki is the director of child labor advocacy at the National Consumers League and he coordinates the Child Labor Coalition.

The recently-concluded week-long “5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour” in Durban, South Africa was convened against the backdrop of the announcement last July of an alarming rise in child labor numbers after two decades of steady and significant declines in global child labor totals.

The global conference, which typically comes about every four years, brought together an estimated 1,000 delegates from foreign governments and small number of representatives of NGOs. It also brought together for the first time at one of the quadrennial child labor conferences dozens of participant youth advocates as well as a number of child labor victims and survivors.

The conference had the difficult mission of righting the ship and trying to reverse the rising child labor numbers, which seem destined to rise further as the COVID pandemic’s impact will continue to be felt for years. Sadly, the pandemic threw 1.6 million children out of school, often for prolonged periods and some of those children entered work and may never return to school.

We would first like to thank the South Africa government for the herculean task of organizing a global conference during a still raging pandemic, all against a backdrop of devastating floods in April that savaged the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and Easter Cape and killed nearly 500 people, destroyed 4,000 homes and displaced 40,000 people.

As the conference opened, Guy Ryder, the Director General of the International Labour Organization, which helped advise the government of South Africa on the organization of the conference, suggested that the rise in 8 million child laborers from 152 million to 160 million likely represented complacency and a loss of focus by global governments on the child labor problem and must be rectified. He noted increases in child labor impacting children under age 11 and urged delegates to redouble their efforts. “We need to increase our efforts, and pay particular attention to child labor in agriculture,” said Ryder, who added that child labor advocacy is threatened by a “perfect storm” created by COVID’s enduring impact, rising food insecurity, and debt crises that are expected to impact 60 nations in the coming years.

South Africa’s president Cyril Ramamphosa delivered a stirring welcome. He noted that his country’s embrace of child rights is not just a matter of principle. “The assertion of the rights of children was a direct response to the deprivation, discrimination and deliberate neglect that had been visited on the black children of this county by successive colonial apartheid administrations,” said Ramamphosa. “Child labor perpetuate the cycle of poverty, denying young people the education they need to improve their circumstances. It condemns communities to forms of economic activity and labor that limit any prospect of advancement or progress.”

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kailash Satyarthi noted the particular challenge that the sub-Saharan African region is facing with the highest rates of child labor and one in five children are in child labor.

Satyarthi urged listeners to embrace the idea that every single child can be protected from child labor. “Let us march from exploitation to education,” he urged, calling for children to have a “fair share” of resources. The amount needed to ensure all children have access to needed resources is only $53 billion – not much considering the wealth of many nations, said Satyarthi who also noted that the G7, which is about to meet on June 26th, has never focused attention collectively on child labor. “This needs to change,” he urged.

The conference opened with a pledge by European Union (EU) Commissioner Jutta Urpilainen that the EU will create a new $10 million euro initiative to reduce child labor in agriculture. Child labor must return to the political agenda, she urged.

The six-day conference, attended by 1,0000 delegates in person and an estimated 7,000 online, according to organizers, featured workshops and side events, and included three meetings every other day by separate groups of employers, workers, and governments. Readers can find a conference agenda here with video links to many sessions.

Twenty-four side events focused on many related topics including child labor in supply chains, a decent work agenda, youth-led activism, small-scale mining, livelihoods skills development, African priorities, partnership in Latin America to end child labor, due diligence legislation, data and research needs, labor inspections, artisanal fisheries and aquaculture, and a child-labor-free zone in Ghana. For a complete list and to view specific side events, please go to agenda, scroll each day’s offerings and click links to the videos.

Attendees learned a lot about specific intervention efforts, and the struggles many nations are engaged in, including Malawi, which has recently been hit by two cyclones and where there is a shortage of 50,000 schools – less than half of the children have access to education, said the nation’s Education Minister Agnes Nyalongje. She pleaded for international help, noting that 12 years of sustained aid could create generational change in Malawi and fix its troubled education system.

It’s difficult to summarize the hundreds of hours of content but readers may get a sense from the CLC’s twitter stream which included four to five dozen original tweets at @ChildLaborCLC.

The conference’s concluding “Call to Action” document emphasizes the need for urgent action, because “the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, armed conflicts, and food, humanitarian and environmental crises threaten to reverse years of progress against child labour”. The document includes commitments in six different areas:

  • Make decent work a reality for adults and youth above the minimum age for work by accelerating multi-stakeholder efforts to eliminate child labour, with priority given to the worst forms of child labour.
  • End child labour in agriculture.
  • Strengthen the prevention and elimination of child labour, including its worst forms, forced labour, modern slavery and trafficking in persons, and the protection of survivors through data-driven and survivor-informed policy and programmatic responses.
  • Realize children’s right to education and ensuring universal access to free, compulsory, quality, equitable and inclusive education and training.
  • Achieving universal access to social protection.
  • Increasing financing and international cooperation for the elimination of child labour and forced labour.

As is often the case at conferences, many of the side conversations are of great interest. We had many great conversations with Simon Steyne, who recently retired from the International Labour Organization but continues his child labor advocacy. Simon is campaigning to bring about a child-labor-in-agriculture conference in the coming year. With 70 percent of global child labor in agriculture and rising child labor rates, a focus on agriculture at this time is absolutely essential, Steyne argued.

What might have been improved at the conference? It seems that a relatively small number of Civil Society participants were invited to the conference, included few from the Americas and Asia. The pandemic and travel distances certainly impacted in-person attendance. And we know a lot of NGO participants were able to join online. We hope that a broader spectrum of Civil Society is invited to future global child labor conferences. NGO delegates often possess in-the-field, grass roots knowledge lacked by government and employer groups and NGO presence is a key element in the fight to reverse accelerating incidence of child labor.

The Civil Society advocates and experts who were there enhanced the conference greatly, mostly through the two dozen side events. We were delighted to be joined at the conference by CLC members Bank Information Center and GoodWeave, which organized the side event “Child Labour Free Supply Chains: Tackling Root Causes from Maker to Market” — included panelist Thea Lee, the deputy undersecretary for International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Labor, who was ubiquitous at the conference. CLC-member Action Against Child Exploitation (ACE) also presented a side event: “Promoting an Integrated Area-based Approach to the Elimination of Child Labour: A Case of the Child Labour Free Zone in Ghana,” with Yuka Iwatsuki, president of ACE among the panelists.

In addition to thanking our gracious South African hosts and the ILO for its organizing role, the CLC also wishes to express appreciation to our valued partners the Global March Against Child Labour and the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation for enhancing the conference significantly through organizing side events and bringing the voices of youth advocates to Durban.

Tara Banjara. 17, was among the youth advocates who appeared as a panelist. Tara said she is from a community in India where there are no schools and “no one had an idea about what education is.” She was four and half when she went to work on roads with her mother. They cleaned garbage and rubble out of potholes. The work was exhausting and difficult and went on till she was rescued by Bachpan Bachao Andolan’s Bal Ashram.

Today, Tara is the first girl to complete grade 12 exams in her entire family. She asked attendance participants gathered in Durban and the thousands on line: “Is this our fault that if we are born in a small village, we do not have the right to live our childhood with freedom?” She asked.

“We want freedom. We want the right to education,” Tara said, sharing her dream of becoming a police officer some day and working at the grassroots level to ensure that all children have equal rights and freedom. In one of the conference’s emotional high points, Tara asked attendees to stand and make a pledge: “Let us all pledge to create a world where every child is free from slavery; every child gets an education and an opportunity to fulfill their dreams.”

During ‘Striketober,’ standing up for a USPS that benefits consumers and workers

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By Eden Iscil, Public Policy Associate

Workers across America are taking action to hold employers accountable for low pay and poor working conditions. In what’s being called “Striketober,” 10,000 John Deere employees, 14,000 Kellogg’s workers, and 24,000 Kaiser Permanente staff have gone on strike. Additionally, 60,000 film and television workers belonging to IATSE threatened to withhold their labor, resulting in a deal for more favorable contracts. At NCL, we support workers advocating for better conditions and compensation. 

While it is generating fewer headlines, the actions of US Postal Service employees are just as important for consumer and worker welfare. Recent postal worker employee protests in Minneapolis highlight the indispensable public service these workers provide to millions of Americans daily. Those protests were prompted by a visit from Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who is infamous for his 2020 attempt to degrade mail services at the same time that COVID-19 necessitated mail-in voting for millions of Americans. Importantly, DeJoy has come under renewed scrutiny for his 10-year plan, which would lead to significantly delayed mail deliveries. 

Given the importance of delivering mail promptly, we urge Congress and the Biden Administration to take a more active role in preventing Postmaster General DeJoy’s continued attacks on the Postal Service. Millions of Americans rely on the Postal Service for delivery of life-saving medication, receipt of their veterans and Social Security checks, and other important mail. Unfortunately, the impacts of DeJoy’s 10-year plan are likely to disproportionately affect rural communities and older Americans.   

We know such policies are harmful to everyday Americans from the many times they were previously attempted. Following DeJoy’s plans for a mail slowdown in 2020, veterans were forced to find alternative access to their medications and 350 million pieces of mail were delayed. We need to challenge such regressive policies that are implemented at an enormous cost to consumers. 

The threat that DeJoy’s recommendations pose to efficient U.S. mail delivery has been known since the summer of 2020. Congress and the Administration must act to get USPS back on the right track.