On International Human Rights Day, Workers Demand Their Rights Be Restored

by James Parks, Dec 10, 2007

Workers in Arizona demand Verizon Wireless honor employees’ desire for a union.
CWA President Larry Cohen (left) talks with Aidan White, general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, during today’s global union summit hosted by the AFL-CIO.

While some 220 union leaders from 63 countries kick off the historic global union organizing summit today, workers from Wall Street to Main Street are commemorating International Human Rights Day through marches, rallies and informational pickets.

Dec. 10 is the anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Workers’ rights are an integral part of the declaration, which states that “everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association” and “everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.”  

The Dec. 10 actions come as the number of U.S. workers in unions has reached the lowest level among developed nations, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. At the same time, collective bargaining coverage has increased significantly in several new and emerging democracies over the past few decades.

Unions in Brazil, South Africa, Korea and Taiwan have been key actors in democracy movements and have linked struggles for recognition and bargaining rights to broad-based struggles for socioeconomic justice.  

To make the case that workers’ rights are being trampled by unscrupulous employers and an anti-worker White House, a coalition of nearly 30 community groups, union members and elected officials in Milwaukee hosted a press conference to emphasize the importance of maintaining and advancing workers’ rights.

Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) joined the group as they called for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would level the playing field and give workers the choice of how they want to choose a union. As it stands now, the employer decides if workers can choose a union by majority sign-up or through a cumbersome, lengthy ballot process. 

Meanwhile, the Rev. Jesse Jackson was leading a march on Wall Street to protest the growing mortgage crisis that threatens millions of workers’ homes. Jackson has called for a Marshall Plan to provide relief to people who are losing homes and savings.

In other Human Rights Day events:

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