This effort must begin with recognising and ensuring migrant workers’ effective access to their right to organise in unions and collectively bargain for safe and fair workplaces.

Migrant workers are:

• Often the victims of forced labour, abuse and exploitation.
• Disproportionately represented in informal work and sectors where precarity is the norm.
• Frequently left trapped in debt and poverty in their search for a better future. According to the ILO, migrant workers pay more than US$5.6 billion annually in illegal recruitment fees.

In a joint statement, the ITUC and other global unions honoured the vital contributions of migrant workers to economies and societies while denouncing the exploitation, discrimination and violence they face.

To mark International Migrants Day, the ITUC organised a webinar, in which trade unions from every region shared their experiences of building union power with migrant workers. The webinar highlighted the importance of ensuring democracy at work for migrant workers, including the effective exercise of their right to freedom of association and collective bargaining through trade unions.