Organizing is a Human Right

The freedom to join a union is recognized internationally as a fundamental human right, deeply rooted in international law, like other basic freedoms such as freedom of religion and the right to be free from discrimination based on race, gender or age.

The freedom to join a union is an important aspect of the freedom of association, which the United Nations recognized as a human right in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work of the International Labor Organization, a U.N. agency, committed all ILO member nations to “respect, promote and realize in good faith” core labor rights, including the freedom to organize, along with prohibition on the use of forced labor, a minimum age for the employment of children and nondiscrimination in employment. This declaration was adopted with the support of all U.S. delegates to the ILO, including the employer representatives.

But when workers try to form or join a union in the United States today, employers nearly always violate their fundamental human rights with tactics designed to suppress the freedom to organize, according to an August 2000 report by Human Rights Watch, Unfair Advantage. Employers’ war on workers includes mandatory attendance at anti-union presentations; one-on-one pressure sessions with supervisors; and threats or “predictions” that the workplace will close or move if workers vote to unionize.

“Freedom of association is a right under severe pressure when workers in the United States try to exercise it,” the report says. “Human rights cannot flourish where workers’ rights are not enforced.”

Flaunting U.S. labor law, employers fire thousands of workers every year because they are seeking to form a union in their workplace. In 1998, the National Labor Relations Board ordered U.S. employers to give backpay to nearly 24,000 workers discriminated against because of union activity. In workplaces with many undocumented workers, employers threaten to call the Immigration and Naturalization Service in more than half of all organizing drives, according to Cornell University scholar Kate Bronfenbrenner.

Upholding the freedom to choose a union is a crucial building block for advancing human rights in the United States and all over the world.

Contact the BCTGM Organizing Department TODAY!