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	Labor Rights Are Human Rights by ITUC, Education International, agencies USA   Dec 2014 (International Trade Union Confederation)   Today, 64 years since the United Nations declared December 10 a Human Rights Day, the world is witnessing an unprecedented attack on one of the most fundamental human rights of all, the right to strike.   Virtually every country in the world recognises that workers have the right to take strike action. Some 90 countries have it enshrined in their national constitution.   From the first struggles for the 8-hour day and for fair wages, for safety and health at work, for weekly rest days and freedom from discrimination and exploitation at work, the fundamental right of working people to withdraw their labour has provided a crucial foundation for social and economic progress. And when people rise up against dictatorship and political oppression, their right to strike has always been, and always will be, a non-negotiable bedrock of democracy.   Only in the most totalitarian of dictatorships is the right to strike denied.   Employer organisations are now seeking to take away that right in international law. They intend to change the balance of power in the workplace and in society for the worse, and forever.   When democracy is expanding, workers and their unions have more space to work for economic and social justice and equality. When democratic space is being closed, as is happening in so many countries today, workers and their unions find themselves under attack.   For more than 100 years, when employers and governments have refused dialogue and negotiation and instead imposed their will, workers have still taken the step and faced the risks of withdrawing their labour. That will not change.   Taking away the right to strike removes the final bulwark against oppression. The international trade union movement is firm in its resolve to resist the assault on this most basic right. We are the force of opposition, and we are the force of progress.   Taking away the right to strike would turn us all into slaves. We will not allow that to happen.   OECD report: education the answer to boosting economic growth and addressing Inequality (Education International)   The statistics don’t lie in the OECD’s latest research, which points to a lacking investment in education as the major culprit behind rising inequality that is costing economies and slowing growth around the world.   According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a growing social economic divide is having a “statistically significant impact” on economic growth. The OECD is urging governments to increase investments in education for low income groups to curb the problem.   “This compelling evidence proves that addressing high and growing inequality is critical to promote strong and sustained growth and needs to be at the centre of the policy debate,” said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría. “Countries that promote equal opportunity for all from an early age are those that will grow and prosper.”   Between 1990 and 2010, the report shows that rising inequality has cost New Zealand and Mexico 10 percentage points of GDP, the UK nine points, and has robbed the US of nearly seven points over the same period.   The report makes it clear that education is the key to turning the inequality table.   The OECD cites lagging investments in education as a major cause behind the rise of inequality. The report says that those coming from a lower-income background suffer from “average education” and fewer educational opportunities, which helps drive increased inequality.   The research also reveals that children of parents with low levels of education “see their educational outcomes deteriorate as income inequality rises,” which in turn leads to lower social mobility and reduced skill development. However, the same does not apply to those whose parents achieved higher levels of education.   The gap between rich and poor OECD countries is at its highest in 30 years. The top 10 percent of individual earners make an average of 9.5 times more than the poorest. Thirty years ago it was only seven times as much.   http://www.ei-ie.org/en/news/news_details/3366   December, 2014   Stand for democracy at work on Human Rights Day!   “Everyone must enjoy full access to decent work, education, health, safety and peace,” says Rosa Pavanelli, Public Services International (PSI) General Secretary. On International Human Rights Day, PSI calls on its affiliates and activists to unite and stand firm against the attack on core labour rights and freedoms.   Over the last few years, an unprecedented attempt to limit freedom of association and the right to strike has unfolded within the International Labour Organization (ILO). Since 2012, the employers’ organizations have tried to rule out the right to strike.   As a result, the very essence of democracy at work is at risk, with additional pressure for trade unions at the national level.   Not surprisingly, precarious work is on the increase almost everywhere while social protest tends to be criminalised, seriously threatening the achievements of social dialogue.   With the support of international financial institutions and lobbied by corporate interests, governments continue to pursue an ultra-liberal agenda, along with failing austerity measures. Yet, the trade union movement keeps fighting.   Workers’ organisations are at the forefront in opposing a new wave of trade agreements that might commodify public services and question national sovereignty, while benefiting multinationals, instead of the workers and taxpayers.   Trade unions keep mobilising for tax justice, calling for an end to tax havens, tax competition and to tax breaks for international companies that do not create jobs, but rather destroy them.   The trade union movement continues to build bridges across borders, striving to ensure living wages and decent working conditions for millions of migrant workers.   “From the attack on democracy at work to the dismantlement of public services, there seems to be a coordinated strategy eroding some fundamental human rights,” says Rosa Pavanelli, General Secretary of PSI.   “Amongst the many challenges ahead, millions of people are also deprived of their rights because of natural disasters, the impact of climate change and endless conflicts.”   “PSI remains strongly committed to ensure that the international community pursues real sustainable development goals and that everyone enjoys full human rights, such as decent work, education, health, safety and peace.”   http://www.world-psi.org/en/stand-democracy-work-human-rights-day   Sept 2014   Labor Rights Are Human Rights, by John Nichols.   U.S. Congressmen Keith Ellison and John Lewis have proposed legislation to protect union organizing as a civil right. “As go unions, so go middle-class jobs,” says Ellison, the Minnesota Democrat who serves as a Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair. “That’s why I’m proud to introduce the Employee Empowerment Act with civil rights icon John Lewis. This ground-breaking legislation will give workers the same legal options for union organizing discrimination as for other forms of discrimination—stopping anti-union forces in their tracks”   Amending the National Labor Relations Act to allow workers who face discrimination for engaging in union organizing to sue for justice in the civil courts—and to collect compensatory and punitive damages—is a sound and necessary initiative.   But it is certainly not a radical initiative—at least by American standards.   Indeed, the best way to understand what Ellison, Lewis and the cosponsors of their legislation are proposing is as a reconnection with a very American idea.   Despite the battering that unions have taken in recent years—in Wisconsin, Michigan and states across the country—Americans once encouraged countries around the world to embrace, extend and respect labor rights.   There was a time, within the living memory of millions of Americans, when this country championed democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the right to organize in the same breath.   When the United States occupied Japan after World War II, General Douglas MacArthur and his aides encouraged the country to adopt a constitution designed to assure that Hideki Tojo’s militarized autocracy would be replaced with democracy. Fully aware that workers and their unions had a role to play in shaping the new Japan, they included language that explicitly recognized that “the right of workers to organize and to bargain and act collectively is guaranteed.”   When the United States occupied Germany after World War II, General Dwight David Eisenhower and his aides urged the Germans to write a constitution that would assure that Adolf Hitler’s fascism was replaced with muscular democracy. Recognizing that workers would need to organize and make their voices heard in the new nation, the Germans included a provision that explicitly declared: “The right to form associations to safeguard and improve working and economic conditions shall be guaranteed to every individual and to every occupation or profession. Agreements that restrict or seek to impair this right shall be null and void; measures directed to this end shall be unlawful.”   When former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt chaired the International Commission on Human Rights, which drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that would in 1948 be adopted by the United Nations as a global covenant, Roosevelt and the drafters included a guarantee that “everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.”   For generations, Americans accepted the basic premise that labor rights are human rights. When this country counseled other countries on how to forge civil and democratic societies, Americans explained that the right to organize a trade union—and to have that trade union engage in collective bargaining as an equal partner with corporations and government agencies—had to be protected.   Now, with those rights under assault in America, it is wise, indeed, to recommit to the American ideal that working people must have a right to organize and to make their voices heard in a free and open society. As the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. said fifty years ago:   History is a great teacher. Now everyone knows that the labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them.   History remembers, as should we. The formal recognition of labor rights as human rights—and the extension of civil rights protections to prevent discrimination against labor organizing—is long overdue. Keith Ellison and John Lewis are renewing ideals that have historically enlarged America and made real the promise of democracy.   http://www.thenation.com/blog/181430/reconnecting-very-american-ideal-labor-rights-are-human-rights# Visit the related web page
	Austerity: Bad news for economic recovery and human rights by Samantha LeMaster Center of Concern, Righting Finance   August 27, 2014   Over the last year, reports from Oxfam, the Council of Europe, and the ILO have criticized the implementation of austerity policies both in Europe and worldwide. According to these reports, austerity policies have not only prevented countries from recovering from the financial crisis of 2008, but have also caused states to regress on their human rights obligations.   According to Oxfam, while austerity primarily necessitates budget cuts that deeply reduce spending on social services, policies may also include the privatization of public services such as healthcare, energy, and water, decreased regulation of labor markets, weakening of collective bargaining, increased administration of the regressive Value Added Tax, and a reduction in resources for battling inequality. These policies weakened regulation and decreased public spending with the intention of lowering the deficit-to-GDP and debt-to-GDP ratios and supposedly creating a more growth and investment-friendly environment.   In this misguided attempt to restore the economies in Europe to pre-crisis levels, austerity policies have had serious negative consequences on the realization of human rights. Because of cuts to social spending, the capacities for states to fulfill their human rights obligations have significantly declined, compounding the negative effects of the crisis on poor and vulnerable populations. Austerity has led to retrogressions in education and health, and escalations of discrimination, xenophobia, racism, and scapegoating of minorities. It has furthered poverty and unemployment, especially in relation to children and youth. According to the Council of Europe, homelessness has increased in 15 of its 21 member countries. The employed are suffering too: 10 percent of working households are now living in poverty as a result of declining real wage values, and the disruption of collective bargaining practices has diminished prospects for wage growth. The Council of Europe also predicts spikes in child labor, human trafficking, and food insecurity as a result of these policies.   “We have been here before – Oxfam’s experience of austerity and economic crisis is that it can take 25 years for living standards to recover,” remarks Oxfam International representative Nicolas Mombrial. Should these policies continue, Oxfam’s report also warns of a “lost decade” in Europe and 15 -25 million more Europeans living in poverty by 2025.   Austerity does not only harm European countries: according to the Council of Europe’s report, austerity practices affect between 80 and 90 percent of the world’s population. In the years since the crisis, many developing countries have adopted or opted to continue austerity policies. Additionally, official development assistance to developing nations has been widely cut as part of austerity policies in Europe; this is especially significant since the European Union is the largest provider of ODA worldwide. As a result, social services/protections in developing nations are losing funding at both the national and international levels, severely reducing states’ abilities to respect human rights obligations and undermining efforts to achieve long-term development goals (e.g. the Millennium Development Goals).   The United Nations Human Rights Council, in its Report on the 10th Special Session in 2009, stated: “global economic and financial crises do not diminish the responsibility of national authorities and the international community in the realization of human rights.” In other words, financial crises do not excuse states from their human rights obligations to both their citizens and to people worldwide. Therefore, by adopting and sustaining austerity measures, states have unjustifiably neglected their interior and extraterritorial human rights obligations.   Unfortunately, these measures have also failed to meet their own goals: Oxfam reported that a majority of affected European countries saw increases to their debt-to-GDP ratios, and some even suffered from higher deficits than before austerity policies were implemented. Furthermore, these countries are experiencing weak growth, which Oxfam believes is unlikely to strengthen under the current policies.   This is not surprising, as austerity policies mirror the failed structural adjustment programs of the 80s and 90s. Those programs pushed income per person levels back 15-25 years in some countries and plunged millions into poverty with little to no progress towards economic recovery. Countries were only able to recover after abandoning the IMF-recommended adjustment policies.   In fact, studies show that social protection programs, which austerity measures have worked to undermine, are essential for recovery, as they lead to economic growth, higher levels of productivity, political stability, and declining levels of poverty.   So why are governments worldwide continuing policies that both impair restoration of their economies and cripple efforts to protect human rights?   One possibility is the involvement of international economic institutions, such as the IMF and World Bank. Despite admitting to underestimating to what extent growth would diminish due to austerity measures, these institutions have continuously pushed for implementation and preservation of these harmful policies.   Another possibility comes from austerity’s effect on equality. While the poor have, in some cases, become poorer, the rich have become richer. Oxfam asserts that the richest 10 percent in Europe have seen their share total income grow since the crisis, often in tandem with a decrease in share of total income held by the poorest 10 percent. The luxury goods market is growing, another mark of continuing prosperity for the richest. Rising inequality is dangerous: it is linked to higher crime rates, lower educational outcomes, and decreased trust between people. Likewise, it leaves an opening for another crash: high levels of inequality can lead to more high-risk-high-interest borrowing, one of the causes of the 2008 crisis. It may also be responsible for the continuation of these policies: Oxfam argues that greater inequality gives richer individuals more political power, which they may use to continue these unequal policies.   No matter what the cause, austerity measures are counterintuitive for both the realization of human rights and the restoration of European economies. As such, these policies need to be reversed in order to return Europe to pre-crisis levels socially, economically, and financially, and to hinder dangerous trends worldwide. To do so, Oxfam recommends protecting ODA and social services, restructuring or canceling unsustainable debt, building fair tax systems, and fixing the problems that started the financial crisis.   The Council of Europe adds on to these recommendations, arguing for positive measures to protect vulnerable and marginalized populations, ensuring universal social protection floors, re-strengthening labor regulation and collective bargaining, and supporting other countries economically with human rights-related programs. In order for the world to move forward, human rights must be prioritized, and austerity be left behind.   * Access the link below to read the Oxfam, Council of Europe and ILO cited reports. Visit the related web page
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