Labour movement champions migrant workers’ rights at 14th GFMD Summit

At the forefront of the 14^th Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD), taking place in Geneva on 23-26 January 2024, BWI, together with the labour movement, underscores the pressing need for a human, gender-sensitive, and worker-centric approach to labour migration.

Advocating for migrant workers, unions call for fundamental freedoms, including the right to organise, bargain collectively, and access to justice, irrespective of migration status. These demands aim at reshaping a global labour migration governance to ensure migrant workers’ dignity, safety and equitable in the global economy.

Addressing the GFMD Civil Society Mechanism, Ambet Yuson, BWI General Secretary said “For too long, the promises for changes have remained elusive. True progress happens on the ground, in the trenches, where our migrant worker brothers and sisters face the daily struggles of exploitation, discrimination, and abuse. It’s there that the battle for justice is fought, and it’s there that our collective power must be harnessed”.

Building the agency of workers, including migrant workers, to asserts their rights and to bargain collectively to transform their conditions is the cornerstone of the labour movement. This principle is at the forefront of the Labour’s Key Demands for the Global Forum on Migration and Development. 

Read the the demands in EN  ES  FR