INTL. UNION COALITION BLASTS U.S. LACK OF WORKERS RIGHTS

Friday, June 13, 2008

(PAI)INTL. UNION COALITION BLASTS U.S. LACK OF WORKERS RIGHTS

            GENEVA (PAI)--In a scathing and comprehensive report, the International Trades Union Congress has blasted the U.S. for its lack of workers’ rights, telling the World Trade Organization that U.S. deficiencies there should be part of the powerful agency’s biannual review of U.S. trade policy.

            But, predictably, the WTO turned a deaf ear to ITUC and the anti-worker GOP Bush regime, called upon to answer questions the trade agency raised in its own review of U.S. trade, didn’t even bother to acknowledge workers at all.

            The ITUC report was sent to the WTO in early June, just before the trade agency conducted its review of U.S. trade policies and practices, from June 9-11. But, responding to a mandate from its foreign ministers two years before, that review was supposed to include labor standards and workers’ rights, ITUC said.

            ITUC noted the U.S., even now, has not ratified key International Labour Organ-ization pacts--which lack the force of law--endorsing the right to organize and collec-tively bargain and endorsing freedom of association and protecting the right to organize.

            It also said that while the U.S. has an equal pay for equal work law, it has not ratified that convention either--and that in practice there is still rampant pay discrimination based on sex.

            In a separate speech to the ILO, also meeting in Geneva on June 10, AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney called the U.S. refusal to ratify those two conventions “clearly shameful.” He also blasted the state of workers’ rights in general, but said the election this November should be a vehicle to change that.

            “There is insufficient protection against anti-union discrimination. The right to strike and the right to collective bargaining are severely restricted, in particular for public sector workers and for certain groups of private sector workers,” a summary of the report’s findings says.

            The result is that as of 2002, U.S. labor law exempted at least 32 million workers--25 million of them in the private sector--from its coverage, ITUC said.

            And that’s not counting tens of thousands more who have been thrown out of labor law coverage by the present National Labor Relations Board, it added.

            “Employers have a statutory right under the NLRA to express their views during a union campaign so long as they do not interfere with their employees’ free choice. In practice, however, employers have a legal right to engage in a wide range of anti-union tactics that chill exercise of freedom of association.”

            It cited employers’ “captive audience meetings,” the ability of firms to discipline or fire workers who refuse to attend them, and other abuses. ITUC also said union-busting is a $4 billion industry. “And the law also allows employers to "predict" (though not "threaten") that a workplace will shut down if workers vote for the union,” ITUC noted.

            “In the public sector, approximately 40% of workers are still denied basic collective bargaining rights. While the Federal Labor Relations Act covers over two million federal employees, the statute outlaws strikes, proscribes collective bargaining over hours, wages, and economic benefits, and imposes extensive management rights that further limit collective bargaining,” the unions reported.

            “Only a little more than half the states allow for collective bargaining in the public sector; several more allow it only for narrow categories of workers. Even where public sector workers have the right to bargain, they generally do not have the right to strike.

            “In North Carolina all public employees are denied collective bargaining rights, which is in violation of workers’ fundamental rights as determined by the ILO,” the international union group told the World Trade Organization. And U.S. labor law and court rulings interpreting it place even more limits on workers to protect themselves, barring intermittent strikes, secondary boycotts and permitting striker replacements.

            The international unions pointed out to the WTO the trade group itself

--known for ignoring workers’ rights--actually committed itself to considering the subject in its last review of U.S. trade policy, two years ago. Therefore, ITUC said, WTO should follow up on that commitment by demanding the U.S. government improve its workers’ rights record as a part of its trade policy.

            "The U.S. administration, rather than leading the way on protection of the rights of working people and on decent pay and conditions, has been intent on denying the freedom to join a union and bargain collectively to millions of American workers. This hurts America's working people and has a negative impact on workers' rights in other countries as well," said ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder in presenting his group’s report to the world trade group..

            “Independent polls show 44 million more workers would join a union, if they were not intimidated by employers,” Sweeney said. “We intend to do something about that this year”--in the election.

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