In late October, the nonprofit organization Human Rights Watch wrote to NLRB chair Robert J. Battista expressing “deepest concern” over the series of decisions known as the Kentucky River trilogy. The decision expands the definition of “supervisor” under federal law to include nurses and other employees with only limited oversight duties over co-workers. This effectively allows employers to fire millions of workers for engaging in trade union activity.

The Kentucky River decisions violate “the principles of freedom of association as established in international law,” Jamie Fellner, director of the U.S. Human Rights Watch program, warned the NLRB.

“The board majority turned its back on international human rights and labor rights standards and flouted U.S. obligations under international law.”

The AFL-CIO also has taken the NLRB’s attack on fundamental labor rights to the international community. In October, the federation filed a protest with the U.N.’s International Labor Organization. The Kentucky River decisions illustrate “how far outside the mainstream of accepted international law the U.S. is moving,” Craig Becker, legal counsel to the AFL-CIO, told the Washington Post.