Developing-world working conditions amid COVID-19: Do unions in Lesotho have a fighting chance?

Abstract

At the 72nd Annual Meeting of the Labor and Employment Relations Association, we screened the short documentary “Rethabile’s Story,” which gives an account of working life in the clothing factories of Lesotho and South Africa and highlights some of the work being done to address challenges to labor standards enforcement by the project on Decent Work Regulation in Africa (DWR-Africa). In this piece, I discuss some of the motivations, aims, and accomplish-ments of DWR-Africa, as well as the implications of COVID-19 for workers and unions based on recent interviews conducted by my colleague, DWR-Africa project member Nthabeleng Molise, in Lesotho.