SEARCH
AFL-CIO Files Complaint to U.N. Labor Organization Against Anti-Worker NLRB Ruling |
|
Claiming the recent decision by the Bush-appointed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in the “Oakwood” case destroys workers’ collective power by denying their freedom to form unions and bargain collectively, the AFL-CIO today filed a complaint with the International Labor Organization (ILO), an arm of the United Nations.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said the NLRB decision
stripped millions of America’s working people of a fundamental human right recognized all over the globe—the freedom to bargain collectively and have a voice on job.
The complaint to the ILO’s Committee on Freedom of Association alleges the decision violate the fundamental internationally recognized labor rights of freedom to form and join unions and engage in collective bargaining.
In the Sept. 29 ruling, the Bush-appointed majority on the NLRB broadened the definition of supervisor, opening the door for up to 8 million workers, including nurses, building trades workers, newspaper and television employees and others, to be barred from joining unions. The 3-2 party-line vote gave employers the ability to transform workers with sporadic oversight over co-workers into “supervisors” even when they lack genuine managerial or supervisory authority.
In their dissent, NLRB members Wilma Liebman and Dennis Walsh said the decision “threatens to create a new class of workers under federal labor law—workers who have neither the genuine prerogatives of management, nor the statutory rights of ordinary employees.”
Liebman and Walsh wrote that most professionals and other workers could fall under the new definition of supervisor, “who by 2012 could number almost 34 million, accounting for 23.3 percent of the workforce.” The Republican majority did not follow what Congress intended in applying the National Labor Relations Act, they said:
Congress cared about the precise scope of the Act’s definition of “supervisor”, and so should the Board. Instead, the majority’s decision reflects an unfortunate failure to engage in the sort of reasoned decision-making that Congress expected from the Board, which has the primary responsibility for developing and applying national labor policy.
In the ILO complaint, the AFL-CIO said the board’s ruling violates ILO standards specifying that all workers “without distinction whatsoever” have the right to freedom of association, including the right to join a union and bargain collectively. All ILO member countries, including the United States, are bound to respect these principles.
The AFL-CIO complaint cited earlier rulings by the Committee on Freedom of Association in cases from other countries involving supervisory status of employees. In those cases, the committee declared that “the expression ‘supervisors’ should be limited to cover only those persons who genuinely represent the interests of employers,” and that changing employees’ status to undermine the membership of workers’ trade unions is contrary to the principle of freedom of association.
Although the ILO committee does not have enforcement power to change national labor laws, the AFL-CIO asked the body to add its “authoritative voice and moral weight in the international community” to a movement for legislation to restore the traditional, more balanced test for supervisory status, limiting it to genuine supervisors and managers.
The federation also asked the Geneva, Switzerland-based committee to send a special delegation to the United States to investigate the effects of the NLRB’s decision.
This is the second time in two weeks that U.S. unions have used international agreements to protest U.S. labor practices. Last week, more than two dozen labor organizations in Mexico, the United States and Canada jointly filed a case against the United States under the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC), the labor side agreement to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The case charges that North Carolina and the United States are violating NAALC and international labor commitments by denying 650,000 public employees in the state the freedom to engage in collective bargaining.
No Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
