Human Rights Day: Celebrate Our Struggles, Build for the Future
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In a dramatic way not seen in years, today’s celebration of International Human Rights Day arrives during enormous and popular ongoing struggles.
In the worldwide job crisis, workers must still have right to decent work and should not be forced to choose between unemployment and precarious work. See the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) message on International Human Rights Day.
Yesterday, people around the world joined a conversation with Navi Pillay, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, to talk about human rights—including the right to form or join unions in the workplace and to bargain for a better life.
You can watch a short video or listen to the conversation here.
This has been an extraordinary year for human rights around the world. Millions found their voices using the Internet and instant messaging to inform, inspire and mobilize supporters to seek basic human rights. Social media helped activists organize peaceful protest movements in cities across the globe—from Tunis to Madison, Wis.; from Cairo to Cleveland and New York to Madrid—at times in the face of violent repression.
At the core of the struggles around the globe is the right for all people to have a real voice on the job, and the right to a decent job.
Workers to Highlight Employee Free Choice on Human Rights Day
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In hundreds of cities across the nation, workers will mark International Human Rights Day on Dec. 10 with a campaign to educate the public and build momentum to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. International Human Rights Day falls each year on the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which includes the freedom to form unions. This is the 60th anniversary of the declaration in 1948.
In Boston, representatives from a dozen community and labor organizations will gather to kick off a statewide campaign in support of the legislation, which would give workers a simple one-step process to freely choose a union. It also would strengthen penalties against companies that intimidate employees trying to form unions and provide for mediation and arbitration when employers and workers cannot agree on a first contract.
