What are global workers’ rights? Which institutions and instruments can be used to realise them? The Global Labour University has launched an online course on Workers’ Rights in a Global Economy to help answer these questions, among others.
Rights and dignity at the workplace are fundamental human rights. However, workers’ rights continue to be violated every day - millions of people worldwide are facing exploitative working hours, poverty wages, humiliation and mistreatment at work. There are estimates that today’s world has a higher number of slaves than any other time in history.
This Global Labour University (GLU) free massive open online course, using an interdisciplinary and multi-level perspective, discusses what global workers’ rights are and which instruments and strategies can be used to implement them.
Six key chapters about workers’ rights and the ILO instruments
It is composed of the following 6 chapters: the concept of global workers’ rights; introduction to international labour standards; supervision of international labour standards; freedom of association and collective bargaining; access to rights for workers in informal and precarious employment; instruments and initiatives beyond the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
At the end of the course, participants will understand the history and concept of global workers’ rights and the institutional structure of the ILO as the key player in setting international labour standards.
They will be able to join the economic debate about labour standards and competitiveness, and understand the concepts behind the fundamental rights of freedom of association and collective bargaining.
They will understand the different approaches for realising decent work in the informal economy and gain an overview of instruments and initiatives beyond the ILO.
The course also allows applying this knowledge to a practical case from a particular country and gain skills and competencies for using the existing instruments and mechanisms for protecting workers’ rights.
The GLU is a network of trade unions, universities and the ILO to deliver high-level qualification programmes. It also offers Masters Courses in four different countries on trade unions, sustainable development, social justice, international labour standards, multinational companies, economic policies and global institutions and promotes research cooperation on global labour issues.
Join this course and get more information about courses offered by the GLU here!