Obama and FDR: new deal and labour rights
Message from Philip J. Jennings, General Secretary
December 10th is International Human Rights’ Day. 2008 is a special year as it marks the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
To UNI Global Union and its members, the Declaration is one of the most, if not the most, important decisions ever taken by the UN.
The Declaration is the cornerstone of human rights in the world. More than 80 other global instruments have been adopted to reinforce its principles.
Why is it so important? The Declaration states very clearly that all human beings are born with equal and inalienable rights and fundamental freedoms. It commits the UN to “upholding, promoting and protecting the human rights of every individual.” These are rights which belong equally to every person on the planet. The Declaration states that people must enjoy freedom of speech and assembly to live free of fear and free of want.
Labour rights are human rights.
It is often ignored that the Declaration also refers to the world of work. It makes a clear link between workers’ rights and human rights. Article 23 of the Declaration states:
(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
Article 20 also refers to freedom of association and Article 25 to social protection.
When we talk of human rights belonging to us all, then those workers’ rights apply to us all as well.
60th Anniversary of Freedom of Association
2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the adoption of ILO Convention 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize. It is principally through Convention 87 that the global trade union movement holds governments and employers to account with the machinery established at the ILO. UNI Global Union wants to ensure that these rights apply to all.
Roosevelt to Obama
The chair of the drafting group that produced the UN Declaration was Eleanor Roosevelt, the widow of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Throughout her life, she championed human and trade union rights. The work of Eleanor and the legacy of FDR inspire and inform us today. FDR became the 32nd President of the USA in 1933 and was in office for 12 years. His New Deal policies rescued and rebuilt the US economy and saved it from the despair of depression. This legacy is still relevant today. The New Deal had many pillars, from the re-regulation of financial markets, the creation of new regulatory institutions, and massive investment in infrastructure to a commitment to social security, full employment, fair labour standards and new labour rights. This was a New Deal that, in saving the economy, was to the benefit of all Americans.
There is no doubt that the New Deal inspired the action that brought the UN Human Rights’ Declaration, as did the desire to build a new world from the destruction of the Second World War.
Obama’s New Deal
Events have come full circle. The world faces global recession. A billion people do not have enough food to eat. Two billion people survive on less than two dollars a day. Unemployment is rocketing. The ILO estimates that unemployment will break 200 million in 2009, with 20 million more jobs lost as a result of the financial crisis.
In the USA last month, over 500,000 jobs were lost – the worst monthly job losses for over 30 years. Inequality in terms of income distribution is as bad in 2008 as it was in Roosevelt’s era.
President elect Barack Obama brings us the hope of change. He has moved quickly to put in his New Deal to create 2.5 million jobs and rebuild America’s healthcare. We are also counting on reforms in financial regulation.
We also look to President Obama – as FDR did – to fix the broken labour relations’ system in the USA. The American unions and UNI Global Union desire that he adds a rights’ pillar to his New Deal. Those rights are to be found in the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which will give to American workers the right to exercise their choice to join a union. The American business world and the union busting industry have set about demolishing the rights to organize through a policy of deterrence, intimidation and force. All American workers have paid a price in shrinking incomes, massive inequality, collapsing collective bargaining and falling standards.
We look to Obama’s Administration to fix this, for him to support EFCA and, in doing so, support implementation of ILO Convention 87 and the spirit of the UN Human Rights’ Declaration.
This is the message that UNI Global Union and the global union movement will be taking to Washington DC in January 2009. We want a world where workers can organize and have those rights recognized through collective bargaining.
Global Agreements and Human Rights
UNI Global Union also makes a call to the world of business to respect ILO Convention 87 and the UN Human Rights’ Declaration.
For UNI Global Union, the best bridge to achieving this is global framework agreements. We are on the way to signing 50 such agreements and through them we have the process and principles to make these standards apply to the corporate sector. These agreements do not bring success overnight but they enable a serious engagement to take place for rights to belong and be applied to all staff everywhere.
On this 60th anniversary, we renew the call to business to enter such agreements with UNI Global Union.
Freedom from Fear
The great sadness and drama we face is that for too many people and workers, human and trade union rights are still a distant dream.
Recently the UNI Global Union World Executive Board devoted a session to freedom from fear. We were appalled at the reports on repression in Colombia, Zimbabwe and the Philippines. We were angered that companies are compliant in such abuses. We were shocked that in Obama’s USA Wal-Mart refuses to recognize our affiliate the UFCW. They would rather close a store than recognize the union.
No one union in isolation can solve theses abuses. That is why we have built UNI Global Union to ensure that human and trade union rights apply to all the people, all the time and everywhere.