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America's Hidden Human Rights Problem: Freedom Of Association |
Current rating: 0 |
by Mark Weisbrot
(No verified email address) |
08 Dec 2003
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Posted in honor of International Human Rights Day, Wednesday, December 10, and in memory of the jobs of 160 Supervalu truckdrivers, mechanics, and other Transportation Department personnel in Urbana, fired in May 1999 in order to bust the union. I hope my fellow workers are doing OK, in spite of the injustice suffered at the hands of greedy management bonus seekers. ML |
"Unions -- the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend," reads a popular union T-shirt. It's true enough -- and we could add a sizeable list of other benefits that most people associate with social progress: employer-sponsored health insurance, pensions, and paid vacations.
But unions in the United States find themselves increasingly having to fight for their very existence. This week, on International Human Rights Day (December 10) thousands of union members and their allies around the country will demonstrate for the right to organize.
This is something that was supposedly established here in 1935 during the New Deal. But this right has been so eroded in recent decades that -- to the disgrace of the world's richest democracy -- it hardly exists at all.
That was the conclusion of a 213-page report by Human Rights Watch, one of the world's largest human rights organizations, written three years ago. And it keeps getting worse. Tens of thousands of workers are fired each year for joining or attempting to organize a union, in violation of U.S. law. But the penalties for employers are so slight that they have what Human Rights Watch calls "a culture of near impunity."
Employers can also refuse to negotiate for years with a union even after it is recognized, effectively negating their legal obligation to bargain. And while they can't legally fire workers for striking, they can hire "permanent replacements" -- a distinction without much difference.
From high-tech computer programmers in Redmond, Washington, to minimum wage employees in South Florida Nursing Homes, Human Rights Watch found that workers' rights to organize and bargain collectively were routinely denied.
Abandoning this basic right to freedom of association has had enormous economic consequences. It is no coincidence that the United States, with one of the lowest rates of unionization in the developed world, is the only high-income country without a national health insurance system. Or that Europeans enjoy five weeks of vacation on average as compared to less than three for Americans.
Perhaps more drastically, the decline of organized labor -- from 30 percent of the labor force in the 1960s to 13 percent today -- has contributed greatly to the most massive upward redistribution of income in American history. The majority of the U.S. labor force has barely seen any of the enormous productivity gains of the last thirty years reflected in their wages.
This is in sharp contrast to the first half of the post-World War II period (1946-1973), during which productivity gains were broadly shared and the median wage rose by nearly 80 percent. The United States is each year becoming more like Latin America and other much poorer countries in its economic and social division into haves and have-nots.
Legislative reform is long overdue, and there is currently a bill in Congress (S. 1925 in the Senate and H.R. 3619 in the House) that could make a big difference. The "Employee Free Choice Act" would allow for unions to be certified on the basis of member signatures, or "card check." In other words, if the National Labor Relations Board certifies that a majority of employees have signed up to join a union, this would be sufficient.
Under the current system, signature gathering is followed by a vote on whether to approve the union. Very often a large majority of employees does indeed sign up for the union, but the employer then uses coercion (firings, warnings of re-location and other threats, "captive audience" meetings) to force a "no" vote.
The bill would also attempt to enforce workers' rights to organize by allowing the courts to use injunctions and fines against employers who break the law. It also provides for mediation and, if that fails, binding arbitration in negotiations for a first contract. This is necessary to prevent employers from stalling for as long as 12 years after a union is certified.
The right to freedom of association is a fundamental human right, and it is a national embarrassment that our society and legal system do not recognize this right for American employees. A recent Peter Hart poll found that 47 percent of non-union workers -- about 50 million people -- would opt for a union in their workplace if they could. This legislation won't make their wish come true overnight, but it's a good start.
Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (www.cepr.net), in Washington, D.C.
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In Largest Union Movement-Wide Mobilization In A Decade: Workers Rally Across Nation For Freedom To Form Unions |
by AFL-CIO
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
12 Dec 2003
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WASHINGTON - December 10 - In the biggest coordinated union movement-wide mobilization in a decade, tens of thousands of America’s workers and their allies chose today, International Human Rights Day, to launch an unprecedented series of events in cities across the United States to call for the restoration of workers’ freedom to form unions.
Democratic presidential candidates, political as well as civil rights leaders and major human rights advocates stood with workers in over 90 events in 38 states -- events such as marches, rallies, press conferences and hearings -- to protest employers’ routine violation of workers’ freedom to form unions, and to pledge to strengthen U.S. labor law. The freedom to form a union is one of the basic human rights proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ratified by Eleanor Roosevelt and representatives of four-fifths of United Nations members on December 10, 1948.
The participation by Amnesty International in the events and the endorsement by Human Rights Watch of fundamental changes in labor law were unprecedented.
Workers at many of today’s events spoke movingly about the opposition they face when they attempt to exercise their right to form a union. One quarter of private sector employers illegally fire at least one worker when workers try to form a union, according to Cornell University research conducted by Kate Bronfenbrenner. Ninety percent of employers fight their workers’ efforts, often using intimidation, coercion, threats of plant closure, one-on-one meetings against the union with workers’ supervisors, and anti-worker consultants.
“Behind the closed doors of the workplaces of America, workers face incredible -- often ruthless -- opposition when try to come together in a union,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. “These employers are literally robbing working people and their communities of better lives. At a time in our nation when the middle class is shrinking, when the gap between the rich and poor is growing, workers deserve the right to form a union to win a real voice on the job through collective bargaining.”
Forty-five million U.S. workers say they would join a union today if they could, to improve their lives and working conditions. Workers form unions to get a voice on the job for fair treatment and decent working conditions, to remedy discrimination and receive better health and retirement benefits.
Speakers at events across the country stressed that when employers block workers from forming unions, the whole community suffers—wages are suppressed, the tax base is weakened, racial and gender gaps grow and the door opens wider to more abuse of workers.
Speakers also referred optimistically to the new “Employee Free Choice Act,” bi-partisan legislation now before Congress. The Act will streamline the process of forming a union by respecting the decision of a majority of workers, by-passing the contentious and delay-prone National Labor Relations Board election procedure. It will also eliminate stalling in negotiating a first contract; and provide meaningful remedies for employer violations.
In New York City, AFL-CIO president John Sweeney gave a rousing address to more than two thousand workers outside the NLRB office, which last year filed more than 14,000 Unfair Labor Practice suits. The NLRB was also the culminating point for five thousand Boston protesters marching from a Workers’ Rights Board hearing at the Massachusetts State House.
Several Democratic presidential candidates addressed workers in New Hampshire, where recent support by all the Democratic candidates resulted in a major victory for workers at WMUR-TV who have finally negotiated a first contract after 11 months of stalling by the company.
In Chicago, more than 1000 workers and their allies rallied to demand that their right to form a union be recognized, before congregating at a Workers’ Rights hearing held at the Chicago United Methodist Church. Cleveland workers also turned out for a full slate of events, with a hearing as well as rallies to highlight the struggles of local workers.
In a moving candlelight ceremony in San Francisco, each candle bore the name of a worker fired for trying to form a union. In Los Angeles, thousands of workers and allies, such as Rev. Jesse Jackson, from feeder rallies merged in a culminating demonstration in Pershing Square, where speakers demanded an end to the abuse of the rights of America’s workers.
Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin pledged support to concerned workers gathered on the steps of the Georgia State Capitol building. Meanwhile in Washington, DC, more than two thousand workers rallied outside the Department of Labor with Sen. Edward Kennedy to call for the restoration of the freedom to form unions and the protection of collective bargaining rights for federal workers; and in Pittsburgh, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka gave support to janitors and grocery workers struggling to form unions.
Dozens more cities hosted similar events, in what AFL-CIO president John Sweeney is calling “an unprecedented wave of public concern for the rights of workers, and a highly successful move towards the restoration of the freedom to form a union.”
http://www.aflcio.org |
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