1,721,120 research outputs found
Labor Rights in Haiti
Get PDF[Excerpt] This study of labor rights in Haiti was conducted on behalf of the International Labor Rights Education and Research Fund by Lance Compa, Washington Representative of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), who is the principal author of this report. It includes findings from a field investigation in Haiti in July 1988, and from interviews and further information supplied by Haitian trade unionists throughout 1988 and early 1989. This report also draws on information developed by a delegation of U.S. unionists and labor educators who visited Haiti July 24-31, 1988, under the sponsorship of the Washington Office on Haiti
Failure to Deliver: Assessing Amazon’s Freedom of Association Policy under International Labor Standards
Get PDFAmazon recently announced a new policy on freedom of association under international standards, saying it would comply with International Labor Organization and United Nations principles on union organizing and collective bargaining. This assessment shows that Amazon’s freedom of association policy, on its face, is non-compliant with international labor standards, and Amazon management’s conduct before and after issuing the policy continues to violate international standards
International Labor Rights and the Sovereignty Question: NAFTA and Guatemala, Two Case Studies
Get PDF[Excerpt] Labor rights advocates in the United States and allied organizations abroad attempting to establish international fair labor standards run up against traditional notions of sovereignty in formulating national labor policies and development strategies. In the same way that entrenched sovereignty principles gradually yielded to international human rights claims after World War E, sovereignty is now being challenged by claims of international laborrights in the field of employment standards and industrial relations. This Article seeks to illuminate this challenge to sovereignty in two case studies of labor rights advocacy. Part I sets the stage with an overview of the growing importance of labor rights and labor standards as the world economy shifts from a nation-based economy to a single, global economy. Part II examines the case studies: the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and Guatemala. NAFTA is a case study of advocacy to establish fair international labor standards. The Guatemala case study exemplifies advocacy by U.S. labor rights supporters on behalf of workers and trade unions in Guatemala, where recourse is sought through worker rights provisions in U.S. trade laws and through a litigation strategy that views U.S. courts as a forum for asserting international labor rights claims.Compa26_International_Labor_Rights.pdf: 1749 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020
Pursuing International Labour Rights in U.S. Courts: New Uses for Old Tools
Get PDFFiling lawsuits in U.S. federal and state courts for workers’ rights violations suffered by workers employed by American corporations abroad is one of several strategies for promoting labour rights. Other strategies include use of labour rights mechanisms in GSP laws, in regional trade agreements like NAFTA and Mercosur, in corporate codes of conduct, in the ILO and other venues. To succeed, such suits must first overcome the strong presumption against extraterritorial effect of U.S. law. Other jurisdictional hurdles like “inconvenient forum” also require caution in bringing suits. However, several cases using common law tort and contract theories as well as international human rights law have recovered substantial actual and punitive damages for workers of U.S. multinational companies in several developing countries. With the right strategic choices, labour rights litigation can be an effective means of advancing workers’ rights in the global economy
The Multilateral Agreement on Investment and International Labor Rights: A Failed Connection
Get PDF[Excerpt] This essay starts with an anecdote to suggest that foreign direct investment can serve workers\u27 interests when their rights are respected. The rewards of investment should not be limited to U.S. workers, either. Workers around the world can benefit from investment flows linked to policies that advance workers\u27 labor rights and living standards.
In this light, an investment agreement that promotes stability, predictability, the rule of law, and fairness in international trade can be a positive force for a high road dynamic in the rapidly globalizing economy, if it takes workers\u27 rights into account. However, if such an agreement fails to incorporate strong protection for labor rights, it can make inevitable a low road of worker exploitation in global trade and investment flows
Human Rights in Labor and Employment Relations: International and Domestic Perspectives
No full textThe abstract, table of contents, and first twenty-five pages are published with permission from the Cornell University Press. For ordering information, please visit the Cornell University Press at http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/.[Excerpt] This volume is intended to collect the best current scholarship in the new and growing field of labor rights and human rights. We hope it will serve as a resource for researchers and practitioners as well as for teachers and students in university-level labor and human rights courses. The animating idea for the volume is the proposition that workers' rights are human rights. But we recognize that this must be more than a slogan. Promoting labor rights as human rights requires drawing on theoretical work in labor studies and in human rights scholarship and developing closely reasoned arguments based on what is happening in the real world. Citing labor clauses in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is one thing; relating them to the real world where workers seek to exercise their rights is something else. The contributors to this volume provide a firm theoretical foundation grounded in the reality of labor activism and advocacy in a market-driven global economy.Gross_Compa_Human_Rights_in_Labor_ABBY.pdf: 11012 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020
NGO-Labor Union Tensions on the Ground
Get PDF[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
Hard Choices: Porkchops or Politics? Organizing or Merchandising? Confrontation or Accommodation?
Get PDF[Excerpt] In what direction will all these pressures—the Reagan challenge, employer hostility, and rank-and-file sentiment for a fight—push trade union leadership? One road—a few simple steps from the Mall site of September\u27s impressive Solidarity Day rally—leads east to Capitol Hill, to a position of renewed strength and influence in the Democratic Party and in Congress. From there, the route is familiar: save the Davis-Bacon Act, fight tight money, salvage social programs without cutting military spending, and elect the likes of Walter Mondale, Ted Kennedy, or John Glenn as President in 1984.
Another road leads north and west and south, toward a position of real strength in poor, working-class, and middle-class neighborhoods around the country. The same alliance of labor, minority, and community forces that built Solidarity Day can turn that single event into an enduring movement for political action at the grassroots level
Comparing the NAALC and the European Union Social Charter (Transcript)
Get PDFThis is a transcript of Professor Lance Compa’s presentation to the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation Conference held in Washington, DC on November 12, 1996 and published in the American University Journal of International Law and Policy.
[Excerpt] After all of the excellent comments this morning and so far this afternoon, both from the panelists and from the floor, I am not sure that I can say anything new about the NAALC. So, what I want to do in this intervention is add some comparative discussion with respect to the European Union and the social charter of the European Union. It has always been a key point of reference for people analyzing the NAALC and, particularly, for critics of the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation
Trade Liberalization and Labour Law
Get PDF[Excerpt] This general report considers 23 national reports from colleagues in North America, South America, Central America and the Caribbean; in Western, Eastern, Northern and Southern Europe; and in the Asia-Pacific Region. Regrettably, we did not have reports from Africa or the Middle East, or from continental Asian nations.
The national reports reflect complex realities that sometimes converge and sometimes diverge. Their diversity and rich detail make clear that, beyond broad generalizations like those in this general report, separate analyses are required to understand distinct developments in each major region and in each country. North America, Central America and South America each have different realities. So do Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western Europe, and different regions of Asia.
Even finer distinctions flow from analysis of developments within these regions: in sub-regions, in individual countries, and in states and provinces within countries. Participants in this Congress should refer to the national reports for these details and nuances. The attempt here is to provide a broad overview of common themes and key differences that emerge in the national reports
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