Editor,
All we are asking for is respect and to do what is right in a time when the corporate world sees dollar signs in the exploitation of workers. It is a time when the race to the bottom is partly driven by the very consumers who make up the working class. It is a time when capitalism is being embraced by the next big empire, China. All we are asking for is the dignity of human rights.
On Dec. 10, 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt joined representatives from four-fifths of United Nations' member states in ratifying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Among the basic human rights the declaration proclaimed was the right of all people to come together in unions - which the United States government had recognized 13 years earlier in enacting the National Labor Relations Act.
But today, workers in the United States routinely are denied this freedom. During the past six decades, employer manipulation and ineffective enforcement have eroded workers' legal protections. Most efforts of workers to organize unions are met with fierce employer opposition - often including brutal and illegal tactics.
Most of the public objects to employers blocking workers' freedom to choose a union - but most Americans don't know about the secret war employers wage to prevent workers from having a voice in the workplace. One in four employers illegally fire workers for union activity. Three in four use workers' supervisors to pressure workers to vote against the union. Many employers also threaten to close or move the company if workers choose a union.
On International Human Rights Day, we will continue a long and lasting campaign to deliver the message that when employers violate workers' rights, they are hurting the community. Good union jobs that pay well and provide benefits help the economy and the community. Union members are strong contributors as taxpayers and are good customers for local businesses. Union jobs provide stability for families and strengthen communities. Collective bargaining plays a vital role in a just, participatory society.
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In New Mexico, the struggle continues - even in the public sector, where we have passed one of the best public employee bargaining acts in the nation. Just last year, New Mexico got its first Project Labor Agreement on a state-financed hospital project. All a project labor agreement does is set standards for management, wages, training and benefits. All it's asked to do is what is right.
It is the time of year, right at the end, when the clock seems to speed up so much. We will take time on Dec. 10 to stop and recognize the basic human rights of freedom of speech, assembly and religion and most of all that everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his or her interests.
Daniel Rivera
Daily Lobo reader
