1,721,068 research outputs found
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
Breaking Ranks: On Military Spending, Unions Hear a Different Drummer
Get PDF[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
Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Workers’ Rights in U.S. Meat and Poultry Plants
Get PDF[Excerpt] This report covers workers’ rights in the U.S. meat and poultry industry in three broad areas of human rights concern: worker health and safety and related rights to compensation for workplace injuries, freedom of association, and the status of immigrant workers. It follows Unfair Advantage: Workers’ Freedom of Association in the United States under International Human Rights Standards, a Human Rights Watch report published in 2000.4 Based on an examination of a dozen industrial and service sectors of the U.S. economy in as many states, Unfair Advantagedocumented widespread violations of workers’ organizing rights and severe deficiencies in the content of U.S. labor law and in the labor law enforcement system.
In Blood, Sweat, and Fear we focus on workers’ rights violations in the beef, pork, and poultry slaughtering and processing industry. The report concentrates on workplace health and safety, workers’ compensation, workers’ organizing rights, and the status of immigrant workers because our research uncovered systemic violations in these areas
...And the Twain Shall Meet?
Get PDF[Excerpt] No country or company should gain a commercial edge in international trade by jailing or killing union organizers, crushing independent union movements, or banning strikes. Gaining an advantage in labor costs should not depend on exploiting child labor or forced labor, or discriminating against women or oppressed ethnic groups. Deliberately exposing workers to life-threatening safety and health hazards, or holding wages and benefits below livable levels should not be permissible corporate strategies. But these are exactly the abuses that happen all too often in a rapidly globalized world trading system based on free trade
Labor Rights and Labor Standards in International Trade
Get PDF[Excerpt] This Article seeks to […] articulate a defense of enforceable international labor rights and labor standards as part of a trade, investment and development strategy that will benefit whole societies, not just their wealthy sectors.
Part I of this Article lays out consensus labor rights and standards drawn from various sources, with examples reflecting concrete concerns that have arisen with the new era in global trade. Part II reviews the forums in which international labor rights claims can be made, with a discussion of the different oversight or enforcement mechanisms provided in these forums. The conclusion suggests next steps for labor rights advocates in the various forums, and recommends a new commitment to international labor rights and fair labor standards by employers, governments and trade unions caught up in the new global economy
U.S. Workers’ Rights Are Being Abused
Get PDF[Excerpt] The 200-page Human Rights Watch report is based on case studies across a range of industries, occupations and regions of the United States. The report recognizes that U.S. workers generally do not confront gross human rights violations where death squads assassinate union activists or collective bargaining is outlawed. But the absence of systematic government repression does not mean that workers have effective exercise of the right to freedom of association. The case studies in the Human Rights Watch report uncover a distressing pattern of threats, harassment, spying, firings and other reprisals against worker activists and a labor law system that is failing to deter such violations
Corporate Social Responsibility and Workers’ Rights
Get PDF[Excerpt] Corporate social responsibility (CSR) brings an important dimension to the global economy. CSR can enhance human rights, labor rights, and labor standards in the workplace by joining consumer power and socially responsible business leadership—not just leadership in Nike headquarters in Oregon or Levi Strauss headquarters in California, but leadership in trading house headquarters in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and leadership at the factory level in Dongguan and Shenzhen. Ten years ago, I would not have said this. I viewed corporate social responsibility and corporate codes of conduct as public relations maneuvers to pacify concerned consumers. Behind a facade of social responsibility, profits always trumped social concerns. CSR was only a fig leaf hiding abusive treatment of workers. But in recent years some concrete, positive results from effectively applied CSR programs convinced me of their value. In Mexico in 2001, workers at the Korean-owned KukDong sportswear factory succeeded in replacing a management and government dominated trade union with a democratic union of the workers\u27 choice. Compliance officials from Nike and Reebok, two of the largest buyers, joined forces with the Fair Labor Association (FLA) and the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC) enforcing their codes of conduct to achieve this result
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