Workers' rights are human rights

By Edward J. McElroy
AFT President

In 2006, the AFT will celebrate 90 years as a union. Over the years, we have grown steadily and forged a reputation as a strong advocate for our members’ economic and professional interests. But our success also is due—borrowing words from a 1960s melody—to “a little help from [our] friends.”

Indeed, the AFT might never have been born had it not been for the assistance of the United Auto Workers, the United Steelworkers and other private sector unions that reached out to us and offered their generous public, financial and moral support.

AFT has always done what it could to return the favor to our union brothers and sisters. And although we celebrate solidarity year round, International Human Rights Day is an annual reminder of how far we’ve come—and how far we still need to go.

On Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day, union members across the country mobilized to demand that working people be guaranteed the right to join a union. The day commemorates the anniversary of the United Nations’ 1948 “Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” This historic document recognized the fundamental rights that people in every nation enjoy, including the right to join with other workers, form unions and bargain contracts.

Thirteen years before the U.N.’s declaration, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act, and millions of Americans joined unions in the years that followed. The presidents who followed Roosevelt—both Democrats and Repbulicans—generally respected the rights of working people. “Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of their right to join the union of their choice,” President Dwight Eisenhower once said. Unfortunately, across the country, there are far too many fools using threats, coercion and intimidation to block union organizing. These obstacles are particularly serious for private sector workers.

After examining hundreds of organizing campaigns, Cornell University researcher Kate Bronfenbrenner issued a report revealing that:

■ ninety-two percent of private sector employers require employees to attend closed-door meetings to hear one-sided, anti-union propaganda;

■ roughly half of all employers threaten to partially or completely close their operations if employees vote to form a union;

■ in one out of four organizing campaigns, private sector employers illegally fire workers simply because they wish to form a union; and

■ even when employees vote to form a union, one in three employers never negotiates a contract—using legal appeals or other delaying tactics.

The right to form unions is meeting hostility not only from private sector employers but also from our own government. In recent years, we have seen unprecedented, mean-spirited attacks on the rights and contractual benefits of thousands of workers.

Last year, for example, the National Labor Relations Board reversed itself and ruled that research or graduate assistants at private universities don’t have the right to unionize. Earlier this year, the governors in Indiana and Missouri revoked the collective bargaining rights of their state employees. Last year, Kentucky’s governor tried to change the health plan for public employees, which would have imposed dramatically higher costs on them.

If we allow anti-union forces to continue to run roughshod over the fundamental right of workplace democracy, it’s only a matter of time before all unions will face similar attacks.