The state is the only force large enough to defend workers’ rights from big business, so why is it so often batting for the wrong team? Maina Kiai: I think the state is paramount. It has to enact laws. It has to enact policies. It has to say – in a very public, moral way – that we must protect people and that people must have the right to assemble and associate. It also has to enact and give a level of accountability. It's one thing to have the laws and nothing to implement them, but something else entirely to let violators know there is a price to pay. That's where we're lacking a lot. Moreover, the largest employer of people in most of the world is the government. So it even needs to work on this internally. It needs to work on itself, and then look at those other employers that exist – including at the domestic level with domestic workers, which we talked about today. So the role of the state is paramount.

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