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grant round

Worker Empowerment Strategies

In 2020, the SAGE Fund supported a thematic round of grants on worker empowerment strategies to drive supply chain accountability and just transition approaches. The twin public health and economic crises created by the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the systemic nature of the accountability gaps and power imbalances between corporations and investors at the top of global supply chains and workers at the bottom. Workers around the world have faced heightened economic insecurity and exploitation this year as longstanding obstacles to protection have been exacerbated. Yet, the pandemic has also created openings to drive transformative agendas towards more sustainable production models and a just transition.

With this thematic focus, SAGE seeks to further develop, test, and learn from different worker empowerment approaches to improve local labor conditions while building workers’ long-term capacity to advance labor rights protection, accountability, and environmental sustainability. This set of projects will have broader field impacts by laying the groundwork and raising the profile of strategies at the intersection of labor and environmental protection. If successful, they will provide concrete entry points for advancing just transition approaches that counter corporate-led agendas in energy production, renewables, and recycling/waste management systems.

grant round locations

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Building Cross-Movement Capacity to Campaign for Energy Democratization in Latin America

The project will analyze the investment and regulatory policies promoting corporate control of the energy sector in Latin America, and in response develop a regional policy framework to advance a just transition in energy and build collective campaigning capacity by the labor and environmental movements.  

organizations

  • REDES – Amigos de la Tierra Uruguay (REDES-AT), redes.org.uy, Uruguay

  • Amigos de la Tierra América Latina y el Caribe (ATALC), atalc.org, Latin America

  • Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA), csa-csi.org, Latin America

 
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Facilitating Waste Pickers’ Organizing in Kenya and Networking across Africa

The project will build the capacity of waste pickers in Kenya to self-organize in formal associations from the local (dumpsite) to the national level in order to increase labor and environmental rights protection, guarantee more sustainable production and recycling practices, and promote learning and organizing across the African continent.   

orgaNIZations

  • Centre for Environment Justice and Development (CEJAD), cejadkenya.org, Kenya

  • Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), no-burn.org, USA

 
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Exposing Workers’ Rights Abuses Behind the Green Energy Transition

The project will document and challenge labor rights violations in cobalt mines in the DRC and pressure for reforms in industry practice through informing and leveraging emerging international campaigns on the renewable energy sector. 

ORGANIZATIONS

  • Centre d’Aide Juridico-Judiciaire (CAJJ), DRC

  • Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID), raid-uk.org, UK

 
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Building Workers’ Capacity to Hold Corporations Accountable for Wages and Protection during COVID-19 and Beyond

The project will strengthen garment workers’ organizing combined with pressure on global brands to secure back payment of wages and labor rights protections during the pandemic, laying the groundwork to address power imbalances in supply chains that render workers vulnerable in a crisis.

ORGANIZATIONS

 
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Empowering Rural Workers in Brazil to Leverage Private Supply Chain Governance Mechanisms

The project will empower unions and workers to monitor, “occupy,” and leverage the use of private supply chain governance mechanisms, pressuring brands and strengthening collective bargaining to improve working conditions at the bottom and shift power across agricultural supply chains in Brazil. 

ORGANIZATIONS

  • Confederação Nacional dos Trabalhadores Assalariados e Assalariadas Rurais (CONTAR), contar.org.br, Brazil

  • Oxfam Brasil (OBR), oxfam.org.br, Brazil

 

In addition to this set of Global Economy grants, the SAGE Fund is providing support to a project through the Response and Vision Fund by the FORGE funder collaborative:

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Building a Bottom-up Right to Water Campaign Challenging Water Privatization in Africa

This project will protect the right to water and challenge water privatization agendas on the African continent in the wake of COVID-19 by facilitating and building cross-movement organizing campaigns in 9 Sub-Saharan African countries threatened by water privatization.

ORGANIZATIONs