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International Human Rights Day
December 10, 2007

As part of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO’s commemoration of International Human Rights Day, President William M. George issued the following proclamation for statewide circulation.

Freedom to Organize is Not Only Essential to Human Rights; it is Also Essential for Improving Living Standards for All Workers
By William M. George, President, Pennsylvania AFL-CIO

Monday, December 10th is International Human Rights Day commemorating the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United States and over 80% of the member states of the United Nations on December 10, 1948.

The Declaration forms the cornerstone of the modern human rights movement and sets forth inalienable economic, social, civil, and political rights of every human being. The Declaration serves as a beacon and benchmark in measuring how well human rights are respected and protected and lights the path to a better world.

The Declaration recognizes the freedom of workers to organize and bargain as fundamental human rights on par with and deserving of the same protection as others such as the freedom of speech and religion.

Although American workers are not murdered or jailed by dictators and tyrants for standing up for their rights to organize as they are in too many of our competitor nations around the globe, our policies and laws no longer recognize or promote the freedom to organize and bargain collectively in direct contradiction to the Declaration of Human Rights.

Every 23 minutes, a worker in America – in Pennsylvania - is fired or penalized for supporting a union. In 2005, more than 31,000 workers were illegally disciplined or fired for union activity. The penalties for these clear violations of law are so minimal that businesses treat them as the cost of doing business. Big business spends millions of dollars every year to threaten and coerce workers from exercising their fundamental rights to form unions and bargain collectively.

The National Labor Relations Board, the agency that is supposed to protect workers’ rights and enforce the freedom to organize for a better life has become so anti-worker under President Bush, that we now call it the National Employers Relations Board. Even the process that workers choose to avoid Board supervised elections – majority sign up – has become slanted against workers by recent Board decisions, making it easier for corporations to get rid of the union then it is for workers to form a union. Collective bargaining rights for temporary workers, disabled workers, and graduate employees have also been rolled back by the Bush Labor Board as well as the reclassification of millions of workers as supervisory in health care, construction and manufacturing industries. The freedom to organize, and the lack thereof, is not only detrimental to human rights and democracies both here in the United States and abroad, it also diminishes the vitality and strength of our economy and our communities.

The presence of a strong and vibrant Labor Movement not only assures decent wages, benefits, and retirement security for union members it raises the living standards for all workers, necessary for long term economic growth and strong communities.

Although we are the most productive workers among industrialized nations in the world we have the widest gap between rich and poor, the highest poverty rate, the weakest job safety laws, the highest rate of uninsured workers and children; and, by no coincidence, the lowest rate of unionization among the workforce.

If we are going to change the direction of our economy and start moving away from stagnating wages, eroding health care benefits, insecure retirements, mounting debt, and mortgage foreclosures; workers must be lifted onto a level playing field with corporations in organizing and bargaining for a better life.

In 2006 the working people of America took the first step in that direction by electing new leaders in Congress. For the first time the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved, over a Presidential veto threat, the Employee Free Choice Act in March of this year. Although it was stopped by a Senate filibuster we are closer than ever in making it the law of the land. Also our trade policies are moving in a new direction toward including fundamental human rights and environmental protections in existing and future trade agreements.

December 10, 2007 not only represents the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 it marks the beginning of our efforts to elect a new President and bigger majorities in Congress who support the freedom of workers to organize and bargain for a better life both here in America and around the globe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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