Labour Rights in the FTAA

[Excerpt] Without an overall trade agreement containing stronger labour rights linkage than that of the NAALC model, advocates will have no central forum or mechanism for dealing with workers\u27 rights in the Americas. This paper suggests that labour rights advocates can and should shape a new viable social dimension in hemispheric trade and demand its inclusion in the FTAA. The emphasis of this paper is on a viable, not a definitive or triumphant, solution. Workers and their advocates do not triumph in the current conjuncture of economic and political forces. They do not will their way to victory with the sharpness of their criticism or the strength of their denunciations; they hold their losses and make small gains where possible. Workers\u27 advocates must coldly calculate what can be done with the reality they are dealt, hoping the outcomes will advance the longer-term struggle for social justice

Trade Unions and Human Rights

[Excerpt] In the 1990s the parallel but separate tracks of the labor movement and the human rights movement began to converge. This chapter examines how trade union advocates adopted human rights analyses and arguments in their work, and human rights organizations began including workers\u27 rights in their mandates. The first section, Looking In, reviews the U.S. labor movement\u27s traditional domestic focus and the historical absence of a rights-based foundation for American workers\u27 collective action. The second section, Looking Out, covers a corresponding deficit in labor\u27s international perspective and action. The third section, Labor Rights Through the Side Door, deals with the emergence of international human rights standards and their application in other countries as a key labor concern in trade regimes and in corporate social responsibility schemes. The fourth section, Opening the Front Door to Workers\u27 Rights, relates trade unionists\u27 new turn to human rights and international solidarity and the reciprocal opening among human rights advocates to labor concerns. The conclusion of the chapter discusses criticisms by some analysts about possible overreliance on human rights arguments, and offers thoughts for strengthening and advancing the new labor-human rights alliance

Legal Protection of Workers’ Human Rights: Regulatory Changes and Challenges in the United States

[Excerpt] In a 2002 study, the US Government Accountability Office reported that more than 32 million workers in the United States lack protection of the right to organise and to bargain collectively. But since then, the situation has worsened. A series of decisions by the federal authorities under President George Bush has stripped many more workers of organising and bargaining rights. The administration took away bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of employees in the new Department of Homeland Security and the Defense Department.18 In the years before the 2009 change of administration, a controlling majority of the five-member National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), appointed by President Bush, denied protection to graduate student employees, disabled employees, temporary employees and other categories of workers. An October 2006, a NLRB decision was especially alarming for labour advocates. The NLRB set out a new, expanded definition of \u27supervisor\u27 under the section of US labour law that excludes supervisors from protection of the right to organise and bargain collectively. This exclusion has enormous repercussions for millions of workers who might now become \u27supervisors\u27 and lose protection of their organising and bargaining rights.21 This case is discussed in more detail below in connection with a complaint to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Committee on Freedom of Association

Thanks to Kareem and His Unbroken Line

[Excerpt] For those of us who are Donald Trump\u27s age, there is a special pleasure in Kareem Abdul-Jabbar\u27s 16th season in the National Basketball Association. Scoring, rebounding, passing off, Kareem is leading the Los Angeles Lakers to another division championship and playoff appearance. There\u27s nothing new about that. More important now is the unbroken line to our youth that Kareem represents. I was upset when the Rochester Royals left my hometown, but get this: A guy my age is still starring in the N.B.A.

[Review of the Book \u3ci\u3eThe Promise and Limits of Private Power: Promoting Labor Standards in the Global Economy\u3c/i\u3e]

[Excerpt] In The Promise and Limits of Private Power, Richard Locke analyzes and evaluates private sector corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives on working conditions in global supply chain factories. The book synthesizes findings from a multi-year project that has already generated several important articles on various aspects of supply chain labor dynamics. The book is structured around a strong central theme. Corporate codes of conduct and other private, voluntary steps indeed can have some positive effects on working conditions in supply chain factories, but results are mixed. They are not sufficient for sustained improvements. Public regulation through effectively enforced legal standards must be part of the equation. In sum, private voluntary regulation can best succeed when \u27layered\u27 on and interacting with public (state) regulation

[Review of the Book \u3ci\u3eAdvancing Theory in Labour Law and Industrial Relations in a Global Context\u3c/i\u3e]

[Excerpt] The ideas and insights in Advancing Theory are an important contribution to the on-the-ground social justice movement challenging corporate rule in the global economy. It can even help rescue labor law and industrial relations as intellectual disciplines and career trajectories for a new generation of students and practitioners excited about thinking globally and acting locally

NGO-Labor Union Tensions on the Ground

[Excerpt] There are serious tensions between NGOs and trade unions, two major advocates of workers’ rights, that underlie any discussion of workplace codes of conduct. The tensions stem from questions of legitimacy that bedevil both communities. Trade unionists see themselves as representing stable organizations with dues-paying members. They have a ready answer to the question “Whom do you represent?” The situation for NGOs is far more complex. No single organization speaks authoritatively for the NGO community. Unlike union leaders, NGO activists are not elected. Some NGOs are membership organizations funded by contributions from individuals. Payments are often sporadic and crisis-driven, in contrast to regular union dues. Other NGOs depend on government grants, wealthy individuals, foundations, and even corporate donations. Dependence on such sources tends to limit NGO activities to those that do not exceed the risks that the funders are willing to take, whereas unions are constrained only by the democratically determined wishes of their members

Breaking Ranks: On Military Spending, Unions Hear a Different Drummer

[Excerpt] What remains to be seen is whether the labor movement\u27s study of military spending will uncover the unions\u27 material self-interest in reducing it, and in conveying that interest to the membership. For besides its general damage to the economy, which is now recognized even by many conservatives, the big, endless military buildup also threatens to inflict fatal damage on the trade union movement and its individual unions—not just indirectly but directly and concretely, in the form of fewer members, fewer contracts, fewer organizing victories, and less political power for working people. In effect, the Reagan Administration\u27s plan to boost military spending in the 1980s is also a program for the structural dismantling of the trade union movement

Human Rights and Workers’ Rights in the United States

[Excerpt] Over the past 50 years, a comprehensive body of international law has affirmed human rights to which all workers are entitled, including the right to form unions and bargain collectively. Although the U.S. government has committed itself to protecting these rights, many American employers fail to live up to these international human rights standards for workers. American workers routinely confront a shameful pattern of threats, harassment, spying, firings and other reprisals against worker activists and a labor law system that is failing to deter such violations

NAFTA’s Labour Side Agreement and International Labour Solidarity

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its supplemental labour pact, the North American Agreement on Labour Cooperation (NAALC), reflect the uneven advances of labour rights advocacy in connection with international trade. NAFTA provides extensive rights and protections for multinational firms and investors in such areas as intellectual property rights and investment guarantees. The NAALC only partially addresses labour rights and labour conditions. But within its limits, it has shown itself to be a viable tool for crossborder solidarity among key actors in the trade union, human rights and allied movements. The NAALC’s principles and complaint mechanisms create new space for advocates to build coalitions and take concrete action to articulate challenges to the status quo and advance workers’ interests. Cooperation, consultation, and collaboration among social actors have brought a qualitative change to transnational labour rights networks in North America