"The miracle is that the labor movement is winning struggles in the face of the nation's pervasive failure to protect the rights of working people."

"Unfair Advantage: Workers' Freedom of Association in the United States Under International Human Rights Standards," 213 pages, $15 from Human Rights Watch, 350 Fifth Ave. NYC 10118, and posted on the Internet at www.hrw.org

In the 2000 Presidential election, obsolete systems, racial bias and improper court decisions in effect denied many Americans the right to vote. When U.S. workers try to vote to have unions, they have to battle a system beset by impotence and anti-labor discrimination.

The miracle is that the U.S. labor movement is expanding its organizing efforts and winning some of these struggles in the face of the nation's pervasive failure to protect the rights of working people.

A recent report by Human Rights Watch, a worldwide monitoring group, is focusing attention on labor rights in the liberal and academic communities.

The study measures our widespread violations of the rights stated in international agreements such as the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and the standards issued by the International Labor Organization, which the U.S. has agreed to abide by.

The study found that despite labor laws, underfunding and understaffing paralyze enforcement efforts against the epidemic of employer violations. Result: When the boss fires workers for organizing, it can take years before justice is done, years in which union activists are fired, funds are sapped and organizing campaigns fizzle.

Marie Sylvain, a nursing home worker in Florida, asked a Human Rights Watch reporter, "Why does it take so long? …Where is the justice? Everything is at the boss' advantage with all these delays." Another worker said, "Everyone is scared now."

The book details management tactics: firings, labor spies, captive-audience meetings, blacklists, intimidation of immigrant workers, discrimination against union supporters and threats to close the business. And even after a successful organizing drive, management flouts the requirement to bargain in good faith. Only one-third of newly recognized unions are able to negotiate contracts.

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service often cooperates with employers by deporting undocumented workers who are trying to organize, preventing them from improving their conditions. When the standards for one group of workers are compromised, others suffer.

And millions of workers fall outside the protection of federal labor laws: agricultural workers, domestic workers, those the employer defines as temporary or independent contractors. Without federal protection, public employees have had to fight state-by-state for bargaining rights laws, which now exist in 30 states. But in some states, including George W. Bush's Texas, it's actually illegal for governments to sign contracts with public employees.

To bring the U.S. up to international human rights standards, Human Rights Watch says we must eliminate the unfair advantage for employers that hobbles organizing efforts in the U.S. They say we should extend the labor laws to all workers and provide adequate enforcement, including punitive damages for violations, impose a standard first contract if management will not settle, ban the permanent replacement of strikers and protect immigrant workers.

In the fight for these reforms, unions will need allies. Right now, the frustration of democracy in our workplaces is almost taken for granted and rarely raised in the political arena. This Human Rights Watch study of the "Unfair Advantage" that employers enjoy will help raise the awareness and build the concerns of institutions outside the labor community.

—Ken Nash
DC 37 Education Fund Library, Room 211