Dec. 1, 2005—Holiday caroling, workers’ rights hearings and a rally featuring CEO “Grinches” are just some of the more than 100 International Human Rights Day mobilizations working families are staging in the United States and around the globe in coming days to highlight the obstacles workers face when they seek to join a union at work.
Dec. 10 marks the anniversary of United Nations’ 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The declaration established the right of people in every nation to come together into unions and bargain contracts.
In the United States, workers have the legal right to form unions to negotiate for better benefits, pay and safety standards—but employers across the country routinely block their efforts with threats, coercion and intimidation.
“Workers rights to join a union and bargain collectively are basic human rights. Yet every 23 minutes American workers are punished by corporate employers and the federal government for exercising their workplace rights,” says Julian Bond, NAACP chairman.
As part of the nationwide events, workers will highlight the need for the Employee Free Choice Act. The act would strengthen protections for workers’ freedom to choose by requiring employers to recognize a union after a majority of workers sign cards authorizing union representation.
Here are a few events scheduled to mark International Human Rights Day.
* Seattle. The Seattle Labor Chorus plans to serenade holiday shoppers in area malls Dec. 9 and 10, distribute information about the Employee Free Choice Act and urge shoppers to use their cell phones to call their senators and representatives to support the act.
* Philadelphia. AFL-CIO President John Sweeny will join Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) and community and faith-based leaders for a town hall meeting to kick off International Human Rights Day Dec. 6 at the Friends Meeting Hall
* Milwaukee and Sacramento, Calif. Workers rights hearing are scheduled in both cities. At the Dec. 7 Milwaukee hearing, six workers will testify—behind screens to prevent employer retaliation—about their struggles to form unions. At a Dec. 10 hearing at the California state capitol, workers from Blue Diamond Growers almond plant and other ongoing local organizing campaigns will describe how their employers have used legal and illegal tactics to thwart their efforts to organize.
* Pittsburgh. Comcast workers around the country have been in a long struggle with the cable giant to win a voice at work. But Comcast has used a wide range of anti-worker tactics. In Pittsburgh, Comcast workers seeking to form a union with the Communications Workers of America are organizing a “Pay Your Bill in Person” day Dec. 5, when workers and their community allies will urge Comcast management to respect workers’ rights.
* New York City. Workers and union leaders, including Brian McLaughlin, president of the New York City Central Labor Council and AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson, will hold a candlelight demonstration at Washington Square Park Dec. 7 to call attention to several workers’ struggles, including New York University graduate employees who are on strike to protest the university’s refusal to bargain a second contract and caregivers of clients with developmental disabilities who have been seeking to form a union with Civil Service Employees Association/AFSCME Local 1000.
In a holiday touch, four “Grinches” symbolizing anti-union employers, will be on hand.
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