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“Workers’ Rights, Human Rights: Making the Connection” Conference Report (16-17 November 2007)
by Mark Thomas, Department of Sociology, York University and Steven Tufts, Department of Geography, York University
17 Dec 07 – A conference titled “Workers’ Rights, Human Rights: Making the Connection” was held in Toronto on 16 and 17 November 2007. The conference was organized through York University’s Centre for Research on Work and Society. Our attendance at this conference was supported by the YUFA Sponsored Conference Fund. We would like to thank the Association for supporting our participation in this conference.
The objective of the conference was to provide a forum for the labour and human rights communities to explore labour rights as fundamental human rights. The conference was organized as a series of panel sessions and small group thematic workshops. The panel sessions focused on the following themes: Collective Bargaining as a Human Right; International and National Developments; Bridging the Gap Between Labour Rights and Human Rights; and Putting Workers’ Rights on the Policy Agenda. The conference workshops focused on Organizing Outside of Statutes, Global Integration of Labour Markets and Workers’ Rights, Combating ‘Illegal’ Back to Work Legislation, Corporate Accountability and Codes of Conduct, and Exploring the Potential of the BC Health Services Decision. We were each facilitators of a workshop. A keynote address on the “Human Rights Responsibilities of Business” was given by Lee Swepston, Senior Advisor on Human Rights for the International Labour Organization. The conference attracted a broad audience of academics and labour rights activists, with over 130 participants.
Workers’ Rights and Human Rights
A key theme of the conference lay in exploring the potential for the reframing of workers’ rights as human rights. What potential would such a reframing have for labour activism? What risks might such a strategy hold? What principles ought to be included in such a framework?
Conference organizer Roy Adams set the tone of the conference through a presentation on the “Evolution and Current Status of Collective Bargaining as a Human Right”. Adams placed emphasis on the importance of ensuring a broad recognition of Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining as human rights. Freedom of Association is formally recognized as such in the International Declaration of Human Rights, but many governments fail to implement both it and the right to Collective Bargaining as fundamental human rights.
According to Adams, human rights are meant to be universal and indivisible. While they are duties owned by all, states have prime responsibility for their implementation. A failure to respect human rights, including the right to Freedom of Association, offends human dignity. While other labour rights, such as prohibitions against child labour or forced labour, have been recognized and affirmed by many states, collective bargaining has yet to be seen as a fundamental economic and political right. According to Adams, the right to Collective Bargaining should include: workers’ right to form associations free from intimidation; the ability of workers to independently select their own leaders and bargaining priorities (no company unions); the requirement that employers bargain in good faith; and that workers are able to strike without putting their jobs in jeopardy. As a political right, collective bargaining is essential for human dignity and is a cornerstone of political democracy. To ensure its effective implementation as a human right, it requires the full and active cooperation of government. The political aim of ensuring that collective bargaining rights are protected is to facilitate union organizing, especially in marginalized segments of the labour market and in sectors where collective bargaining has been historically restricted by statute (e.g., essential service providers).
Other presenters contributed to this discussion by focusing on various aspects of the workers’ rights-human rights connection, all the while emphasizing the importance of recognizing Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining as human rights. Speakers noted that human rights issues are critical to the trade union movement because union membership numbers are in decline worldwide. The right to freedom of association, collective bargaining, and the right to strike are cornerstones of democracy and human rights cannot flourish where labour rights are not in place and enforced. Presenters supporting this perspective asserted that defining labour rights as human rights promotes democracy and economic prosperity. With respect to Freedom of Association and the right to Collective Bargaining, many argued there is a connection between democratic states and strong unions and that the erosion of union rights threatens democracy generally. To effectively promote Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining as human rights, governments must adopt and implement International Labour Organization (ILO) labour standards, promote public awareness of the labour rights-human rights connection, and develop coordinated strategies between labour rights and human rights organizations.
The Canadian case was illuminated by Jim Clancy, National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE), who reported that over the last 20 years 175 pieces of labour legislation have been enacted. Of the 175 pieces studied, 97% were anti-labour, effectively deregulating the labour market. Clancy also noted that in 76 official complaints to the ILO regarding violations by Canada, 73 have been ruled upon with 68 recognized violations of Freedom of Association.
The presentations prompted a wide range of discussion points for the second panel. This panel focused largely on the implication of a recent BC court decision that found that Bill 29 - passed by the Campbell government in 2002 to restrict collective bargaining in the health care sector - violated the right to freedom of association. For some, the decision is viewed as a linkage of human rights to labour rights and will encourage collective bargaining. For others, questions were raised concerning: 1) a possible backlash from the state; 2) the focus on labour rights as human rights detracting from other union initiatives; 3) an over-reliance on the ILO human rights frameworks as a means of battling employers at a time when the ILO has had increasing contact with the Breton Woods institutions (e.g., World Bank).
It is here that some in attendance were critical of the strong emphasis placed on Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining, calling on panelists to consider other aspects of workers’ rights-human rights connections, and to pay attention to gendered and racialized dynamics of labour rights violations and labour rights advocacy. Others questioned the strategic implications of utilizing an essentially liberal human rights agenda to challenge the economic inequalities engendered through capitalist globalization. For example it was noted by Janek Kuckiewicz, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), that 10% of global political repression is anti-labour with 144 murders related to union activism in 2006. It is here where we are reminded of the toothless nature of human rights agreements, which are ignored by many signatory countries.
The small group workshops provided some opportunity to explore broader aspects of the connections between the workers’ rights-human rights debates. For example, in a workshop on ‘Global Integration of Labour Markets’, participants discussed the experiences of racialized and gendered marginalization experienced by migrant workers who enter the Canadian labour market on temporary work visas. These workers are often exempt from labour laws, or unable to enforce basic legislative protections due to the precarious status in both the labour market and the country. From this workshop emerged a consensus that a worker’s rights-human rights agenda must both recognize and prioritize the economic, political, and social rights of migrant workers.
In another workshop titled ‘Organizing outside the Statute’, five presenters discussed the difficulties of organizing work in non-traditional employment relationships (e.g., independent contractors, undocumented workers). A number of successful cases were discussed including: the organization of independent childcare providers in Illinois; the organization of rural postal deliverers by CUPW; the formation of Workers’ Action Centres for the unorganized in Toronto; the organization of part-time college teachers (which have historically not been allowed to organize in Ontario); and the fight for union pluralism in the US which would allow unions to be recognized in workplaces prior to having a majority of workers organized. It was in this session where the difficulties of equity organizing for workers outside of traditional employment relations without institutional support clearly emerged. An important question to be answered is whether expanding our interpretation of workers’ rights as human rights well beyond freedom of association issues to include broader equity rights prior to gaining union recognition rights for workers is of strategic value. For example, are pay equity battles and other rights for equity-seeking paid and unpaid workers more easily achieved once freedom of association (i.e., the right to collective organization) is secured?
The keynote speaker of the conference was Lee Swepston, ILO Senior Adviser on Human Rights. Swepston, provided an overview of the ILO as a rights-based organization. He highlighted the difficulty of developing broad conventions covering sweeping rights (for example, women’s rights and minority rights continued to be objected to by some states) and the problems associated with supervision of states after ratification of agreements. There are also issues with countries in the global north who fail to sign agreements. Canada, for example, has yet to ratify several ILO conventions including some on forced labour. (The Canadian government often hides behind the issue of jurisdiction as labour is the purchase of the provinces.) Finally, transnational corporations themselves have no obligations under such agreements and only recently have corporations broken from this practice through voluntary Corporate Social Responsibility agreements.
Towards a Workers’ Rights Institute?
In the final session of the conference, conference organizer Roy Adams raised the possibility of organizing an independent Workers’ Rights Institute in Canada. This followed a panel where British and American examples of such institutes, their mandates, structures and sources of funding were presented. The aim of the Canadian Institute would be to put workers' rights on the policy agenda by publicizing international developments regarding the human rights nature of labour rights, reminding governments of their responsibilities to protect and promote those rights, and calling on corporations to respect these rights in order to be considered good corporate citizens.
This proposal was met with some resistance from some conference attendees. Critical questions about the proposal emerged during the ensuing discussion from the floor. What relationship would this institute have with Canadian trade unions and labour centrals? In what ways would this Institute address the interests of non-unionized workers? What human rights principles would frame the Institute’s mandate?
While conference participants did not resolve these questions, the conference certainly provided a forum for much needed debate and discussion. From our perspectives as both academics and labour activists, further exploration of both the relationships between workers’ rights and human rights, and the strategic implications of these relationships, is essential in today’s global economy.
Other Delegates from this Conference:
Linda Briskin
Hyun Ok Park