Canada signs key international bargaining and organising treaty

On 14 June 2017 Canada ratified ILO Convention 98, the key international treaty promoting collective bargaining and the right to organise.

“ After 60 years, Canada has ratified ILO Convention 98. Canada now recognises why strong unions matter in creating a fair and inclusive country. We thank all those who have been fighting for this moment ” Larry Brown, President of the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE).

The Convention calls for: ● protection against acts of anti-union discrimination ● protection for unions against interference by employers ● machinery to develop and promote collective bargaining Convention 98 has now been ratified by 165 countries, including Canada

www.nupge.ca INTERNATIONAL Volume 24 Issue 2 2017 union Contents

Editorial 2

Labour Provisions in US Free Trade Agreements: 3 rights Experiences and Challenges Interview with THEA MEI LEE & CELESTE DRAKE Journal of the International Centre for Trade Union Rights ● Centro Internacional para los Derechos Sindicales An Injury to One is an Injury to All? 6 ● US Labour’s Divergent Reactions to Trump Centre International pour les Droits Syndicaux JONATHAN ROSENBLUM

Editor Ciaran Cross Police Unions and Race 8 FRED D. MASON Deputy Editor Daniel Blackburn Judicial “Amendments” Weaken US Labour Protections 10 Editorial Board ELLEN DANNIN & ANN C. HODGES David Bacon, Lance Compa, Kally Forrest, John Hendy QC, Carolyn Jones (Chair), Eric Lee, Pascal Lokiec, Replaceable Workers, Unconscionable Employers, 13 Sindhu Menon, Jill Murray, Rory O’Neill, John Odah, and a Deeply Disturbing State CIARAN CROSS Tom Sibley, Rita Olivia Tambunan, Charles Woolfson ICTUR in Action: Interventions 14 Legal Editor President Egypt; Georgia; Honduras; Indonesia; Kazakhstan; Kenya; Professor Keith Ewing John Hendy QC Madagascar; Uzbekistan; Venezuela

Vice Presidents California Workers Get Ready For 16 Kurshid Ahmad, Jan Buelens, Anita Chan, Ericson Crivelli, Workplace Immigration Raids Fathi El-Fadl, Professor Keith Ewing, Esther Lynch, DAVID BACON Lortns Naglehus, Yoshikazu Odagawa, Jeffrey Sack QC, Jitendra Sharma, Jeff Sissons, Surya Tjandra, The Contested Origins and 18 Ozlem Yildirim Future of “Right to Work” Laws MOSHE Z. MARVIT

ICTUR International Deadly Picket-Lines in US Labour History 20 UCATT House, 177 Abbeville Road, London SW4 9RL PAUL F. LIPOLD & LARRY W. ISAAC T 020 7498 4700 F 020 7498 0611 E [email protected] W www.ictur.org New South African Federation Prioritises Marginalised 22 KALLY FORREST Director Daniel Blackburn ICTUR in Action: 2017 Administrative Council 24 DANIEL BLACKBURN Researcher Ciaran Cross Worldwide 26 Subscriptions Four issues: £20/US$30/C25 Cheques should be made payable to IUR Overmatter 28 and sent to ICTUR, UCATT House, 177 Abbeville Road, London SW4 9RL, UK

Printed by The Russell Press, Nottingham ISSN 1018-5909

24/2 | International Union Rights | 1 EDITORIAL

Editorial

One hundred years ago this year, the United States Readers might be le" wondering, what sort of enacted the Espionage Act. In 1918, Eugene Debs – ‘trade practice’ then is the US government’s leader of the 1894 Pullman strike and co-founder of approach to its own domestic labour protection? As the International Workers of the World – was Lee notes, the US case presents not so much a ‘gold- convicted under the Act and sentenced to serve twenty standard’, as a ‘tin-standard’. In a new report on years in a federal penitentiary. In 1920, Debs freedom of association and assembly in the US, the (unsuccessfully) ran for President, from his prison cell. outgoing UN Special Rapporteur highlights the !e election campaign of the incumbent US glaring contradiction between the government’s President Donald Trump could hardly present a more rhetoric in championing freedom of association startling contrast. One of the most enduring images of abroad, and serious infringements of workers’ union 2016 is of the newly elected President standing in the rights at home. gold-plated elevators of Trump Towers – accompanied Ellen Dannin and Ann Hodges are critical of the by UKIP’s Nigel Farage. It is hard to imagine two more judges who have signi#cantly weakened the National incongruous backdrops for Presidential hopefuls than Labor Relations Act (NRLA) – the legal framework Debs’ Atlanta prison cell and Trump’s golden li" – for US industrial relations – through judicial almost exactly one century apart. interpretation. Lipold and Issac remind us that the !is issue of IUR comes at a very uncertain moment enactment of the NLRA brought to an end the most in US politics. Trump’s election success has – as violent era of industrial relations seen in any Western Jonathan Rosenblum recounts – provoked not only nation. Moshe Marvit also places today’s struggle international consternation, but also divergent reactions against ‘right to work’ legislation in historical context, from trade unionists in the US. While some unions noting that their legal origins can be traced to polar joined in protest against the President’s attempt to ends of the political spectrum. While employers impose a ‘Muslim travel ban’, several union leaders promoted such legislation as an anti-union strategy, welcomed his promise to bring back US jobs and black workers initiated legal challenges to their industry lost to trade competition and globalisation. disenfranchisement by closed shop strategies of Precisely how this loss will be tackled is not yet clear. unions dominated by white workers. We open this issue in conversation with the AFL-CIO’s Such historical divisions continue to strike a !ea Mei Lee and Celeste Drake, who discuss attempts chord. !e 2014 killing of Michael Brown and a to persuade former US administrations to enforce spate of fatal shootings of young black men by police labour provisions in free trade agreements. !ey suggest provoked some trade unionists to demand that that Trump’s new trade appointees may be more willing police unions be expelled from the AFL-CIO. Fred in this respect, and might even pursue China over its Mason approaches this sensitive topic as one born of labour rights violations as an ‘unfair trade practice’. the enduring legacy of racism produced by slavery, a"er which unions were quicker to accept police into their ranks than housekeepers and farm hands, the majority of whom were people of colour. !e patent xenophobia stirred up the Trump election campaign Next issue of IUR is of course a recurrent theme in this edition. David Articles between 850 and 1,800 words should be sent by email ([email protected]) and Bacon describes how renewed e$orts to criminalise accompanied by a photograph and short biographical note of the author. Please send by migrant workers in California may thwart or re- 15 August if they are to be considered for publication in the next issue of IUR. energise organising e$orts there. Also in this issue, Kally Forrest reports on the Subscriptions: Print only £25 (individual rate), Print and electronic £75 founding of a new federation in South Africa, (individual or institutional), Electronic only £55 (individual or institutional). following a dramatic split in the country’s labour Affiliations: (includes print and electronic access, and more, see www.ictur.org) movement. Zwelinzima Vavi – the new federation’s Individual £50, Branch / local union £75 (includes 3 subscriptions), General Secretary – was in New Orleans earlier this National £750 (includes up to 25 subscriptions). year, reaching out to the International Convention of Name/Organisation the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. Vavi Address emphasised the need for international solidarity in these uncertain times: ‘comrades, we need each other!’ In that spirit, ICTUR’s Director Daniel Email Blackburn reports on our latest activities and the Payment on invoice / Payment enclosed discussions held at this year’s Administrative For discounted rates please contact IUR’s Editor Daniel Blackburn on [email protected]. Council meeting in June. All subscription services are available via our website: www.ictur.org/affiliation.htm

Subscribe to IUR / Affiliate ICTUR Ciaran Cross 2 | International Union Rights | 24/2 INTERVIEW | AFL-CIO

Labour Provisions in US Free Trade Agreements: Experiences and Challenges

CC: !e US has a somewhat unique approach to commitments in the agreement. It had its promoting labour rights through free trade weaknesses, but that was a major step forward… But agreements. What has been the AFL-CIO’s then we had eight years of back-sliding during the The NAFTA experience with these agreements and with the US George W. Bush administration, where the labour and Trade Representative (USTR)? commitments were weakened and watered down, in CAFTA [the Central America FTA]1, Chile, environmental Lee: !is started with the Generalised System of Singapore, Australia, Bahrain, Morocco, Oman. At side agreements Preferences [GSP], which is our unilateral bene#ts the very end of the Bush administration in May were programme for developing countries. Congress in 2007, the Democrats took a majority in the House of the 1980s inserted language around internationally Representatives and used their bargaining power to disappointing. recognised workers’ rights as one of the many insist that in the last batch of trade agreements in But we have conditions for developing countries to be eligible for the Bush years – Korea, Colombia, Panama and Peru progressively GSP for lower tari$s on certain products. !e idea – that much stronger labour and environment was tying access to the US market to adherence to provisions be included. tried to use each internationally recognised workers’ rights and national debate conditions of work. CC: !e US-Guatemala complaint under CAFTA is around a new NAFTA [the North American Free Trade the only labour case to progress to arbitration as Agreement] was the #rst time in the context of a yet. What lessons can be learned from the case? trade agreement bilateral or regional trade agreement, that we tried to to move the ball go another step, to say that countries that voluntarily Drake: We #led that with six Guatemalan unions in forward enter into a trade agreement with the US should also 2008, so the agreement actually goes back to the be willing to make commitments with respect to Bush administration. And the CAFTA standard was workers’ rights. NAFTA was a very ambitious, essentially ‘enforce your own laws’. It gave a nod to intrusive concept of trade agreement where things the ILO Declaration but that was speci#cally like intellectual property rights, #nancial services, unenforceable. !e complaint was accepted fairly and investment rules were all considered fair game. timely, it was actually accepted by the Bush And that opened up the idea for us to say shouldn’t administration the day before Obama’s inauguration we be able to also protect basic labour and and then it sat and sat and sat for years. Finally in environmental standards, to try to have some sort of 2015 they actually went to Dispute Settlement. And counterweight to the corporate bene#ts and now it has been nearly two years since the panel privileges that the big business lobby in the US was heard it. insisting be included. We understand that there is a decision out there So in some ways it was a defensive mechanism, and that the US government and the Guatemalan THEA MEI LEE is but it also allowed us to talk about workers’ rights, government have responded to it and we’re waiting Deputy Chief of Staff at the AFL-CIO. in a way that – in our view – was not protectionist for publication. But assuming that the US would win but was a way of making a partnership with unions – which I think is questionable now given this long CELESTE DRAKE is and workers in developing countries and our delay – the strongest penalty that could result is a Trade and Globalization trading partners. #ne paid by the government of Guatemala, which is Policy Specialist at the !e NAFTA labour and environmental side essentially a #ne paid to itself, because the #ne then AFL-CIO agreements were disappointing on a number of goes into a fund which is then used to remedy the Thea Mei Lee fronts. But it was a foot in the door and since that problem of failing to e$ectively enforce its laws. So time, almost twenty-#ve years ago, we have when you say it’s enforceable by sanctions, well, progressively tried to use each national debate that’s an awful lot of work to say that basically we’re around a new trade agreement to move the ball going to try and get the government to re-target forward. We had forward progress with the Jordan some of its own money towards doing the thing that agreement at the end of the Clinton administration, they agreed to do in an international agreement. which did include enforceable core ILO labour So what’s the value of the CAFTA standard? In standards in the core text, subject to the same terms of really raising standards in Central America, dispute settlement in principle as the other we haven’t seen it and frankly on any number of 24/2 | International Union Rights | 3 INTERVIEW | AFL-CIO

measures, things are worse now in the Central Drake: !ere were six. American countries since CAFTA. So it has not been particularly helpful, but it has given us a platform to Lee: And then he had the nerve to tell us, ‘well, shine a light on the labour conditions. they’re a little stale, you know some of this information is old’. But if you’re going to leave it CC: In April 2015 it was reported that there was a sitting on someone’s desk for four years… disagreement between the USTR and the AFL-CIO over the content of the US’ submission in the CC: It’s been reported that over sixty trade Guatemala case, that the violence experienced by unionists were murdered since the complaint was trade unionists in Guatemala had been omitted "led in 2008. from the USTR’s complaint. The complaint Drake: In 2012 we #led a complaint on Honduras against Drake: Actually when the Bush administration under CAFTA, using the exact same rules, and I accepted the case and issued its report in January believe we included – twenty-one cases, to get over Guatemala was 2009, it did mention the violence issue. Subsequently, this ‘well, six isn’t enough’… they essentially took filed in 2008. We when the Obama administration took it over they three years simply to issue the initial report – that’s understand that never mentioned the violence issue. When we asked supposed to be due in six months. What we were them, the answer was, ‘no, this violence against trade told was, ‘well, we had to take so long to write the there is a unionists is a rule of law issue, it’s for the State report because you included too many cases…’. decision out Department to work on diplomatically, we do not We’re now developing a new proposal for the there… But the view it as a violation that we can address under the supposed renegotiation of NAFTA, which gets rid of labour chapter’. !at was their answer. ‘sustained or recurring’, and it would be assumed to strongest penalty a$ect trade and investment, you don’t have to prove that could result Lee: And we went round in a lot of circles about it. And we make clear that violence and intimidation is a fine paid by that, but I think they were very unhappy when that are violations of the agreement. But we also said, the was put publicly by AFL-CIO President Trumka at a determination of whether there are violations, and the government Senate hearing. whether it’s a good idea to go beyond technical of Guatemala – assistance and cooperation, to actually bring a case, to itself Drake: But the US did not include the violence in its should be taken out of the decision-making of any of brief to the arbitrators, or talk about it at the hearing. the Parties and go to an independent labour So despite the protestations – the USTR were so secretariat, sta$ed ideally with former ILO upset that we would say this about them – but in the international labour experts. end, they didn’t view it as a violation because they didn’t raise it at the hearing as a violation. It all goes CC: !is renegotiation of NAFTA is part of a to show that the US views the provisions as very resolution2, put forward by the Democratic narrow, and when you’ve got an enforcement Congressman Peter DeFazio, which the AFL-CIO is mechanism which relies wholly on the discretion of supporting? the US government to bring a case, and the US government’s interpretation is as narrow as possible Drake: Yes, we certainly support his resolution. It’s these provisions are not going to be e$ective. non-binding, but looking at President Trump’s statements, he seems to be clear that he is moving CC: And the breach of the labour clause in CAFTA ahead with the renegotiation. is de"ned to cover only failures to enforce domestic laws in a manner a!ecting trade between the CC: What are your feelings about the Trump’s Parties. Showing that e#ect could prove impossible. trade appointments? His nominee for USTR – Robert Lighthizer – has promised stricter Drake: If you look at the other chapters of CAFTA enforcement of FTAs, which would seem to be in or other agreements, a violation of IP rules is a line with the AFL-CIO’s position. And he’s also violation of IP rules. You don’t have to also prove appointed – amid some controversy - Peter that it a$ects trade and investment. Another thing is Navarro to oversee the National Trade Council. Celeste Drake that under labour chapters, violations have to be !e AFL-CIO has previously "led petitions to the ‘sustained or recurring’ and that I have not seen in USTR calling for the o$ce to investigate China’s any other chapter. !e USTR told us when we asked, systematic repression of worker rights as an unfair what does this mean ‘sustained or recurring’, they trade practice. Peter Navarro is a very outspoken said, ‘oh, two times: recurring’. critic of China, and I understand and that the AFL-CIO president, Richard Trumka, even Lee: And yet when we came to the Guatemala case, featured in Navarro’s 2012 manifesto "lm, Death for example – a"er it languished for several years – by China… the USTR general counsel told us, ‘we’re not sure you really have enough cases..’. Lee: I was in it, too. 4 | International Union Rights | 24/2 INTERVIEW | AFL-CIO

CC: OK. So, I was wondering, to what extent do the welcome another country to challenge the US for AFL-CIO’s aspirations with regard to US trade being out of compliance with our ILO policy and labour rights in China coincide with commitments. We’ve had conversations at various these appointments? times with the Canadian and the Australian unions about initiating a case. Here in the US we are not Lee: Certainly Trump on the campaign trail raised a proud of our labour laws, of our labour standards, lot of the same concerns that we’ve had: that our our enforcement. trade de#cit is hurting American manufacturing, When NAFTA was under discussion one of the that we’ve done a bad job negotiating and enforcing conversations we had with the Canadians was even agreements, and that our trade relationship with whether they could bring an illegal subsidy case China is extremely lopsided, imbalanced, and that against the US saying that the US government’s China engages in a lot of unfair trade practices that enforcement of right-to-work laws in many We have always have been harmful to American workers and Southern states – and now many mid-Western states seen these manufacturers. So we would agree with those as well – is in fact an illegal subsidy, where the premises. And Peter Navarro is someone with whom government is basically enforcing provisions which agreements as a we’ve worked. I’ve known him for a long time, I’ve under-price labour in export sectors and that that is two-way street known Bob Lighthizer for a while. And they’re both an unfair trade practice. and we would I think very sincere, and focused on addressing these concerns. Drake: !is is one place where an independent welcome another !e problem with the Trump frame on trade and labour secretariat would help, because it may be a country to globalisation is that there is a toxic sludge of racism case that whatever the Canadian unions did – or the challenge the US and xenophobia in his immigration policies and Australian unions or whoever – to petition their even the way he talks about trade that we deeply government, it’s a big deal for US trading partners for being out of object to. We would never say ‘America First’ – that’s and allies to bring a case against the US, because the compliance not how we look at the problems of the global US has all sorts of resources and power and with our ILO economy. What we want is to #gure out how we can in%uence to rain down upon them, to say, ‘please have new rules for the global economy that are good don’t challenge us’... commitments for working people everywhere, that li" up workers’ rights and environmental protections, consumer Lee: During the 10 May 2007, discussions about protections. really strengthening the labour provisions in our When Trump talks about the reason we’re not trade agreements there were a lot of Republicans competitive in the global economy, he says we’re who said, ‘why don’t we re-write the trade agreement over-regulated, over-taxed and wages are too high. provisions so that they don’t a$ect the US, they’re Again, that is the opposite of how we would identify just requiring the US trading partners to meet these the problems of the US and the global economy. labour standards’. And the AFL-CIO %atly rejected We’d say we’re under-taxed, under-regulated in some that. We said that the whole idea is that this is sense, and workers’ wages are too low. reciprocal, that we’re not holding ourselves up as a We haven’t heard the Trump administration talk gold standard by any means. In fact, it’s more like a very much about workers’ rights as an unfair trade tin-standard… practice. We’ll see. So I think the jury is still out in We don’t think we have to be perfect in order to terms of what kinds of actions this administration say, our aspiration is basically to use the economic will actually take. So far, we’ve seen a lot of bluster power of a trade agreement to li" up international but we haven’t seen much action with respect to commitments that we’re maybe all falling short of in China and I would say in terms of the economic di$erent ways. So we take the ILO Declaration, impact on American workers, China is much more which on its face is not really enforceable, and we important than renegotiating NAFTA. embed that into an economic agreement between two or more countries as a way of saying, this is how Drake: And Lighthizer we believe may be interested in we give teeth to the commitment we’ve already pursuing labour violations as an unfair trade practice. made. He’s shown some interest in that in the past… Interview conducted by Ciaran Cross CC: What about enforcing labour provisions in FTAs against the US? !ese provisions also work 1Officially ‘CAFTA-DR’ (the Dominican Republic-Central America the other way around. In the AFL-CIO’s vision of FTA) after the Dominican Republic joined negotiations in 2004 strong labour protection in international trade 2Dubbed a ‘Blueprint for America’s New Trade Policy’, the agreements, is leverage or enforcement against the resolution is also supported by the Teamsters, United US also something foreseeable? Steelworkers (USW), International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW), Communications Workers of Lee: Absolutely yes. We have always seen these America (CWA), Public Citizen, and Citizens Trade Campaign. agreements as a two-way street and we would 24/2 | International Union Rights | 5 FOCUS | UNITED STATES

An Injury to One is an Injury to All? US Labour’s Divergent Reactions to Trump

Arshiya Chime is a union member helping to rescue explanation. Corporate America’s insatiable pro#t the world from climate change. Once she gets her drive is only half of our problem; the other half is doctorate degree later this year from the University the movement itself. !e disastrous situation didn’t of Washington, she will become a highly prized materialise overnight. Rather, the seeds of today’s mechanical engineer, helping economies become less ruinous harvest were planted 70 years ago. dependent on oil while protecting the environment and creating jobs. But Chime, a leader in her An Era of Union Complacency US inequality has graduate student employees union, United Auto By the end of World War II, US union reached epic Workers Local 4121, is not welcome in Donald membership had soared, reaching a third of all levels. It’s no Trump’s vision of America. As an Iranian immigrant, workers. In manufacturing, fully 69 percent of she’s denied the right to freely travel. If Trump’s production workers were covered by union surprise that the Muslim travel ban orders ultimately are upheld, agreements. Militant strikes during and right a"er 2016 election Chime would probably have to take her expertise to the war pushed demands for a greater share of the produced the another country, because US #rms won’t want to economic pie along with social demands like price hire someone unable to work on foreign projects controls. In 1946 alone, 4.6 million workers went on most anaemic and attend international conferences. strike – about 1 in every 20 in the paid US workforce. union turnout for Chime is not alone. About 30 percent of her But rather than build on that nascent power, most a Democratic fellow graduate student employees at the University union leaders determined to make peace with of Washington are international students, many of political and business elites, believing – incorrectly – presidential them from countries included in the Trump travel that the tripartite domestic détente of World War II candidate in ban. When the White House announced the ban in was still alive. Even before Senator Joe McCarthy’s more than late January, Chime’s union rallied with other labour witch-hunts, unions started purging communists groups, immigrant rights organisations, faith allies and other suspected radicals from their ranks, 30 years and political activists, staging impromptu airport seeking to demonstrate their loyalty to government mass marches and shutdowns. Chime and other and business. UAW 4121 leaders mobilised public opinion1 by !e leadership of the labour federation that speaking out at press conferences, organising teach- emerged in the 1950s steered away from organising ins, and by joining the lawsuit that ultimately more workers. AFL-CIO president George Meany blocked Trump’s ban. famously declared, ‘I used to worry about the size of JONATHAN Other union leaders, unfortunately, seem to have the membership. I stopped worrying because to me ROSENBLUM is a forgotten the picket line refrain, ‘an injury to one is it doesn’t make any di$erence. !e organised fellow Seattle-based union an injury to all’. !e same month, but a political is the only fellow that counts’. Most union leaders and community galaxy away from the boisterous airport focused on securing economic gains for their largely organiser, a member of UAW / National Writers demonstrations, construction union leaders exited white memberships, tamping down militant Union Local 1981, and an Oval O&ce meeting to rave about the new insurgency in the ranks, giving lip service to the the author of Beyond president’s pledge to boost infrastructure spending. emerging civil and women’s rights movements, and $15: Immigrant ‘we have a common bond with the president’, gushed pledging allegiance to the capitalist economic system Workers, Faith Activists, Sean McGarvey, head of North America’s Building in exchange for collective bargaining agreements. and the Revival of the 2 Labor Movement Trade Unions . AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka !e bargaining system has worked well overall (Beacon Press, 2017). praised Trump for talking up jobs in his #rst joint for those fortunate to be covered by union More about him can be congressional address3 and could barely manage a contracts. By the new millennium, the average found at www.jonathan milquetoast riposte4 to Trump’s xenophobic attacks union member could expect to make 25 percent rosenblum.org on people like Arshiya Chime. more than a worker not covered by a union !e divergent labour reactions frame the stark contract. But %ip side of this ‘union di$erence’ was choice facing the US union movement: build that it presented a huge incentive for corporate and #ghting working class solidarity, or a hunker down political elites to attack labour’s power through in a desperate every-union-for-itself strategy. union-busting, outsourcing, contracting out, and Today’s situation is perilous. US unions represent passing laws to hamstring unions. barely 10 percent of the US workforce, down from As union power ebbed and the American Dream 33 percent in the 1950s. Union leaders across the of upward mobility slipped away, most union leaders political spectrum are quick to pin blame for the – instead of organising to expand their memberships present crisis on relentless union-busting and hostile – clung re%exively to the Democratic Party for politicians. !at’s accurate – but not a complete salvation. In 1976 they backed Jimmy Carter for 6 | International Union Rights | 24/2 FOCUS | UNITED STATES

president, expecting to win labour laws to ease took place when labour acted not out of narrow self- organising. Instead, Carter and an overwhelmingly interest, but as part of a broad social movement; not Democratic Congress handed corporate America as a co-dependent of a political party, but as an deregulation tools to dismantle worker power and independent force. slash pensions. In 1992 unions counted on Bill In other parts of the world, particularly among Clinton to deliver jobs, but instead he pushed the societies in the global south, such formations are job-killing North American Free Trade Agreement called social movement unions: Bold movements and eviscerated the nation’s welfare system. Even as that recognise the singular nature of the justice workers became more productive, real wages fight spanning workplace and community, and the stagnated. In 2008 unions hoped Barack Obama inseparability of economic, racial, and social would save workers but instead Wall Street got justice struggles. 1‘Taking Action for bailed out while nearly 9 million workers were #red, !e elements of social movement unionism Immigrant, 14 million families lost their homes, and the already are among us, embedded in leading justice Undocumented, & president invested more political capital in struggles today. Chicago teachers, uniting with International promoting another horrible trade agreement – the parents, have struck to defend quality public Student/Scholar Trans Paci#c Partnership – than in backing modest education from corporate attack. Uber and other Rights’, UAW Local labour law reform or a raise in the national rideshare drivers have organised strikes to win better 4121 website: minimum wage. pay and protections. Outside Seattle, a coalition of http://www.uaw4121.o Under Obama, union ranks have declined by low-wage immigrant airport workers, faith activists, rg/about/membership- updates/imm-undoc- another half a million workers, and US inequality and community members took on an improbable rights has reached epic levels. Given that record, it’s no battle against corporate and political giants to win a 2Erik Loomis, ‘The surprise that the 2016 election produced the most breakthrough $15 ballot initiative, helping to spark a Unions Betraying the anaemic union turnout for a Democratic national movement (I was privileged to have been Left’. February 6, presidential candidate in more than 30 years: Hillary the campaign director). Undocumented immigrant 2017, New Republic. Clinton won union households by only 51 to 43 labourers, housekeepers, and nannies have formed https://newrepublic.co percent, an 8 percent margin. In the previous seven worker centres in dozens of cities around the m/article/140423/unio presidential elections, the Democrat won union country, leveraging wage standards and basic rights ns-betraying-left households by an average margin of 22 percent. through collective action. In North Carolina and 3Video interview, ‘AFL- Now, quite a few leaders on the le" are advocating beyond, the Rev. William J. Barber II has united CIO President Trumka: that unions and their allies try once again to reform faith leaders, union members, and immigrant rights Unions Will Help Trump Rewrite Rules of the national Democratic Party from within. !is is a activists in a powerful Moral Mondays movement to Economy’, March 01, fool’s errand, as the recent installation of an reclaim democracy and raise the call for a moral 2017: http://www.fox establishment, pro-corporate party chair economy. And, of course, there is Arshiya Chime’s business.com/features/ 5 underscored . If there’s any single takeaway about union and the thousands of workers, faith and 2017/03/01/afl-cio working class voters in the 2016 campaign – from community activists who occupied airports -president-trumka- Bernie Sanders’s remarkable insurgency to Donald nationwide and turned back Trump’s Muslim ban. unions-will-help-trump Trump’s brutal and ugly win – it’s a rejection of the Indeed, the basis of social movement unionism -rewrite-rules- establishment of both major political parties. rests on the simple and time-tested premise that, as economy.html Likewise, the AFL-CIO’s Trumka and the Chime notes, ‘we’re all in this together’. In the wake 4AFL-CIO President construction union heads who today seek common of the mobilisations against Trump’s travel ban, Trumka statement: ground with Trump are repeating the historic Chime saw her fellow Iranian students step up their ‘Attacking Immigrants and Refugees Hurts All mistake of believing that sworn enemies truly want union activities. !ey’d experienced the power of Working People’ accommodation with labour. solidarity, and gained con#dence through direct January 31, 2017. action. Social Movement Available here: !ese and other %edgling examples of social https://aflcio.org/press/ Unionism in Ascendance movement unionism understand that the #ght is releases/attacking- !e salvation of unions resides in joining with about power, that we need to build broad alliances of immigrants-and- allies to #ght the coming Trump onslaught – and the 99 percent, disrupt convention and circumvent refugees-hurts-all- then to go beyond that to de#ne a bold, unapologetic broken law, and employ bold new strategies. And, working-people vision of society and economy, one that inspires importantly, each of these campaigns challenges 5Lauren Gambino, millions of workers to engage and take action. unions to think di$erently about their role in the ‘Tom Perez is new For those of us in unions, it means using all of the world – to act expansively, to link arms with new Democratic party chair, beating Keith Ellison tools at our disposal to defend what we still have – at friends, and to articulate a bold vision of justice. in tight vote’, The the bargaining table, on the shop %oor, and in Indeed, the gi" that Trump’s ascension gives us – Guardian. Sunday legislative halls – but then go beyond to forge new perverse as that may sound – is that his victory 26 February 2017: powerful community alliances to demand civil strips away any illusions about the depth of https://www.theguardia rights, immigrant justice, health care, quality organised labour’s existential crisis. !e challenge n.com/us-news/2017/ education, food and shelter, and fair wages for all. within the US labour movement is to shrug o$ past feb/25/tom-perez Indeed, the pinnacle achievements of US unions – failed strategies and seize the moment to reclaim -democratic-chair-keith think Social Security, minimum wages, safety laws – labour’s larger social purpose. -ellison-atlanta-ballot 24/2 | International Union Rights | 7 FOCUS | UNITED STATES

Police Unions and Race

Over the past several years, public outrage over From Overseers to Officers accounts of black men, women and children dying The current discussions about police, policing, in encounters with police has increased. !is police reform and criminal justice reform in mounting outrage has given rise to calls for reforms general flow from the egregious and callous acts of The ideological in policing and the criminal justice system as a brutality and life ending situations carried out by and practical whole. Community and street protesters call for police and inflicted upon primarily people of ‘justice’, and few American institutions have been colour and African Americans in particular. Such weight of slavery spared from at least condemning the deadly acts. actions are increasingly captured on camera, made it Religious organisations, educational organisations as challenging the viewer to authenticate what they historically easier well as local, state and government bodies have saw. Given the racial character of such brutality, entered the fray of discussion. !ese discussions and where the perpetrators are often white and the for unions to invariably are forced to take into account the sufferer is black, again calls into question the accept police as challenges of America’s race and racial disparities. lingering racist practices to be found in United workers than to On 14 August 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, white States society. police o&cer Darren Wilson #res 12 rounds and Both racist practices and policies have their accept kills Michael Brown an unarmed 18-year old black origins and continuance in slavery and have not housekeepers man. !is killing with its images and details widely been formally acknowledged as being wrong by and farm hands, carried in national media, sparked outrage that government, or other major institutions. The union simply would not go away. !e killing of Michael movement has not acknowledged or stated the majority of Brown came at a time when there was an uptick in unequivocally that slavery was wrong! whom were the notoriety of such encounters since the highly Such lack of acknowledgement lends itself to safe people of colour publicised death of Trayvon Martin. haven for those who do not fully accept the equality Responding to public outcry from within its of all workers, and manifest it in their institutional membership, in February of 2015, the AFL-CIO (the structures and practices. To varying degrees, unions American Federation of Labor and Congress of carry the ideological and practical weight of 246 Industrial Organizations), a federation of 55 national years (1619–1865) of slavery’s history, when and international labour unions representing 12.5 Africans in America were not seen as part of the million organised workers, launched its Labor human family in the body politic. An additional 77 Commission on Racial and Economic Justice, stating: years of Jim Crow [a body of segregationist law] did ‘America’s legacy of racism and racial injustice has little to counter murderous ideas, nurtured in the been and continues to be a fundamental obstacle to American psych over decades. !us it was easier to workers’ e!orts to act together to build better lives for accept police as workers than it was to accept all of us. Racism has always been a key tactic of housekeepers and farm hands as workers, the employers seeking to divide us. But we also have an majority of whom were people of colour. ugly history of racism in our own movement…. "e Police and police organisations are not creations demand for racial justice cannot be divorced from the of workers, brought about by workers’ struggles. FRED D. MASON, Jr is #ght for economic justice’1. !ey were created by bosses to thwart the advance of President Emeritus of Ensuing discussions witnessed some union workers’ struggles. !eir earliest creations can be the Maryland and District of Columbia members o$ering expressions of solidarity with traced to overseers of African slaves and maintaining AFL-CIO, with over 50 Michael Brown’s grieving mother, a member of the order in the system of slavery. years of experience in United Food and Commercial Workers union As demonstrated by America’s Civil War, regime social and economic (UFCW), while others called for equal or greater change is possible, but only comes about when justice activism solidarity with the International Union of Police education and practical acts forces changes within Associations (IUPA). Some of these discussions have armed oppressing forces. !ey are either overcome raised the question of whether police unions should by a greater armed force or – through practical acts exist and whether they should be in the AFL-CIO. and education – change course to side with those To the extent that police o&cers organise themselves who are seeking advances in the social and political to #ght for better wages, hours and working conditions, order. While another ‘civil war’ is not advocated, it is they should form unions and join with other workers right to continually engage police, in the union who are #ghting for similar advances in their movement and in the community, in seeing that they employment situations. !is is equally true for the should become more conscious of their own identity millions of other workers who are employed in as workers, and grapple with the question of whose America’s correctional and security systems. side they are on. 8 | International Union Rights | 24/2 FOCUS | UNITED STATES

The Blue Thread Police unions have been around formally since Today’s workforce includes large numbers of 1919 and they have grown across the country since service sector workers, many of them in low paying then. While the more popular and larger and part time jobs and disproportionately people of organisations and coalitions of police o&cers are the colour. !ey do not #t the manufacturing and Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), International Union industrial mould that America’s union movement of Police Associations (IUPA), National Association was cast from. So the union movement, with its ever of Police Organization (NAPO), a number of smaller present and unresolved racial, ethnic and gender organisations exist and are a&liated with national The 2014 killing contradictions tends to ebb and %ow with general and international unions both inside and outside the of Michael economic conditions. Relative to the growth of AFL-CIO. !e IUPA is the only one directly a&liated America’s workforce, the union movement is in a to the AFL-CIO (since 1979). Brown prompted non-growth state. !e current economic situation Given the way that law enforcement organisations questions over with its severity and consequences #lters down to are woven into the fabric of the AFL-CIO, expelling police unions. It increasing numbers of white workers and their one such union, IUPA, is not likely to happen. !ey families. !is calls to the surface America’s notion of a&liated tens of thousands of dues paying members. is right to white supremacy where their plight is the result of So, on the question of police unions being in the continually the others getting too much. !is is a critical piece of AFL-CIO, while the very notion is distasteful to engage police, in the American order that police are called to protect. many, there are many fundamental contradictions A new growing American union movement will that need to be heightened before such a the union have to tackle these complexities head on. confrontation becomes a reality. movement and in An accepted tenant of trade unionism is that the community, anyone who works for wages should be in a union. Permanent Historical Education Without doubt many, if not most, of yesteryears and One is reminded that in the histories of many in seeing that todays police are products of the ‘working class’. We unions that are now part of the AFL-CIO, there were they should are mindful that the ‘working class’ is strongly practices and stated policies that barred African become more divided along racial, ethnic, gender and economic Americans and other nationalities from lines and tend to view the world generally through membership. It took years of struggle both inside conscious of the lens of the capitalist class, where property and and outside the union movement to bring about their own identity pro#t are sacrosanct. !e ‘working class’ may be attempts at meaningful change. as workers viewed as a grouping in itself, because of its !e AFL-CIO is not a monolith when it comes to relationship to the means of production and the daunting and lingering social and economic distribution, but it is far from being a class for itself. issues of our time, particularly when it comes to !e owners of the means of production and issues of race, ethnicity and gender. As a federation distribution and government apparatuses always it is not endowed with the right to dictate how its insure protection of their interest by hiring one a&liates respond to today’s issues. Its a&liate unions element of the ‘working class’ to protect itself from and their members cover the entire spectrum of attack and to maintain ‘order’ against the other, again American political and social thought. Attempts by protecting the sanctity of property and pro#t. union leaders to appease and appear as reasonable Nowhere is this more clearly demonstrated than and fair to government bosses tend to outweigh when workers go on strike or band together to siding with the righteous indignation of victimised protest perceived injustices of governments or bosses. groups of workers. Such posit exacerbates inherent Police forces, like the US military, are challenges in the AFL-CIO. institutionalised and promoted in certain !ere needs to be greater open struggles around communities as a way of having a job. State and local contending ideas and outlooks within the AFL-CIO. police address the same yearning and no doubt start Maintaining the status quo will not serve to advance out as a way for the individual to pay the bills and workers’ interest in their #ght against capital. Such feed one’s family. O"entimes armed with a uniform open discussion of ideas, tested in the practice of and a gun, they accept their role as protectors of the building a new American Workers Movement will ruling elite, and distinct from the masses, setting up shed greater light on friend and foe. Right now it is an ‘us-and-them’ paradigm. !e blue thread that not any clearer that the police are the ‘enemy’ of binds the police as a group is seen as stronger than workers than it is that workers are the ‘enemy’ of the history that should bind them to the larger capital. !e e$orts to achieve a just and fair society group of workers. Forming into a union knits that must be continuous. 1The full 2017 Report thread even tighter. While the AFL-CIO Commission on Racial and of the AFL-CIO It is estimated that there are 1.3 million police Economic Justice discussions were a good starting point, Commission on o&cers and nearly 500,000 correctional o&cers in a permanent education department within the AFL- Racial and Economic the United States. In order to protect their interest as CIO is needed to engage all a&liates, on an on-going Justice is available to POs and COs, they have organised into various basis, in e$orts to acknowledge sordid aspects of download here: associations, both formally and informally to protect American history. Such e$orts should certainly focus https://racial-justice their ‘brotherhood’. on building unity in the struggle around race and class. .aflcio.org 24/2 | International Union Rights | 9 FOCUS | UNITED STATES

Judicial ‘Amendments’ Weaken US Labour Protections

During the height of the Great Depression, Congress undercut the very purpose of the law by giving more enacted the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to power to employers and less to workers, speeding create equality of bargaining power between the decline of unions in the United States. employees and employers. Congress made it clear that, just as employers form corporations and Achieving The NLRA’s Goals partnerships, employees must have the equal right to !e NLRA declares its goals as protecting form collective organisations. Without equality of workers’ full freedom of association, self- bargaining power, employers could depress organisation, and designation of representatives of employees’ wages and purchasing power, which had their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating led to economic depressions and recessions. the terms and conditions of their employment or Congress stated that this inequality must end. !at ‘other mutual aid or protection’, and encouraging In taking the role insight led Congress to enact the NLRA to equalise collective bargaining. of legislators, bargaining power in order to restore prosperity to Section 7 identi#es employee rights to organise, the United States. form, join, or assist unions, to choose bargaining the courts Giving workers the right to form unions and act representatives, and to bargain collectively or to pervasively collectively created balance between workers and abstain. !e law prohibits discrimination and undermined the employers. For the next forty years, workers and coercion of employees who exercise their Section 7 employers shared prosperity created by their rising rights to bargain collectively in good faith once NLRA and the productivity. In the early 1980s, a precipitous decline employees have selected a union to represent them. body that in unionisation was accompanied by a signi#cant Section 10(c) gives the NLRB power to issue enforces it, the recession. Beginning in 2007, the Great Recession orders to cease unlawful activity and to take was the most serious economic crisis since the Great remedial action, including reinstating employees and National Labor Depression. In spite of these economic downturns, providing back pay. Relations Board unionised workers still earn higher wages and While the law provides clear and meaningful (NLRB) bene#ts than non-union workers, but real wages direction regarding what is protected and what is have not grown since that time despite increased unlawful, judicial amendments have weakened the productivity and periods of economic growth. !e law. !e changes in the law now strengthen rich have gotten richer, but workers have not shared employers while disempowering unions, permitting ELLEN DANNIN is in that prosperity. employers to frustrate equality of bargaining power. the author of What changed? Why was the NLRA through the In addition, judicial amendments now limit Working Free - The 1930s into the 1960s a powerful law that helped li" remedies, allowing employers to violate the Act with Origins and Impact of people out of poverty, but subsequently unable to impunity. New Zealand’s stem the tide of falling unionisation and inequality Employment Contracts The Pernicious Role of Act (Auckland of bargaining power? !e answer is that American University Press) and judges created ‘Judicial Amendments’ to the NLRA. Bargaining Impasses Taking Back the In the United States, judges are not supposed to !e NLRA was supposed to give workers Workers’ Law - How to create laws. !at is the role of legislators and the represented by unions a say in negotiating working Fight the Assault on executive branch. A judge that usurps the law takes a conditions and replace unilateral employer control Labor Rights (Cornell University Press). In lawless path. with bilateral determination through collective addition to workplace In 1939, Osmund Fraenkel, former general bargaining. To make certain that employers issues, she also writes counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union understood that they no longer had the right to on infrastructure (ACLU) said, ‘courts have o"en struck down laws make unilateral decisions, the NLRA de#ned the privatisation designed to aid labour, by conservative construction obligation to bargain collectively in Section 8(d). of the constitution and have emasculated them by !e duty to bargain means the duty to ‘meet at interpretation. !e most useful weapon in their reasonable times and confer in good faith with varied armoury has been the doctrine that the respect to wages, hours, and other terms and legislature intended merely to enact the law as it had conditions of employment’. Section 8(d) also already been handed down by the courts. As if the requires signing a written contract based on the labour pains of law-making were readily undergone parties’ agreement. for any such futile purpose’. In taking the role of When Congress amended the law in 1947, it legislators, the courts pervasively undermined the added Section 201, which states that having a ‘sound NLRA and the body that enforces it, the National and stable industrial peace’ depends on settling Labor Relations Board (NLRB). !ese amendments issues through ‘conference and collective bargaining 10 | International Union Rights | 24/2 FOCUS | UNITED STATES between employers and the representatives of their address the e$ects of the violation on the rights of employees’. employees to unionise. As a result, it does not deter Good faith negotiations do not always result in employers from violating the law and actually entices agreement. Determining what happens when a law-breaking employers to commit violations. bargaining impasse is reached, judges have !e remedy for unlawful termination is ‘judicially amended’ the law, reducing workers’ reinstatement with back pay. !is remedy burdens bargaining power. !e NLRA allows using economic terminated employees in three signi#cant ways. First, weapons when an impasse occurs to break the the law requires the employee to ‘mitigate’ the deadlock. But now judges allow employers to impose damages caused by the employer’s illegal #ring by workplace terms unilaterally when the employer and mandating that the employee make a satisfactory job union reach an impasse in negotiations. search and then deducting what the employee earned Over time, judges have made it increasingly easier a"er being illegally #red from the back pay the for employers to implement new terms unilaterally. wrongdoing employer must pay the employee. And !ese judge-made rules create incentives for #nally, although the loss of income might lead to the If there is no employers to reach bargaining impasses, because loss of a home, repossession of a car, loss of medical remedy for doing so allows the employer to implement its coverage, or harm to the employee’s credit rating, desired terms instead of negotiating a contract these consequential losses, commonly part of the violation of a agreed to by both parties. !e ideal that Congress remedy for other legal claims, are never included in right then there envisioned - two equal parties bargaining and the so-called ‘make whole’ remedy under the NLRA. is actually no reaching an agreement on terms both are committed !e Court has further impaired remedies for to - has, instead, evolved into manoeuvring for unlawful termination by ruling that employees not right. That is advantage using judge-made rules at odds with the lawfully working in the United States are not entitled precisely the clear purpose of the law. to either reinstatement or back pay when they are situation created #red for organising a union. !e result is an Effective Remedies incentive for the employer to violate immigration by judicial A law is only as e$ective as the remedies for laws and labour laws. amendment of violating it. Unfortunately, courts have now gutted Justice Scalia, a major voice on the Supreme Court remedies under NLRA remedies, making violation of the law more for decades, o$ered particularly telling comments in enticing than compliance. the oral argument in Ho!man Plastic Compounds v. the NLRA Section 10(c) says that the measure of an NLRA NLRB2. Indeed Scalia and other justices in the remedy is whether the remedy will ‘e$ectuate the Ho$man Plastics majority ‘judicially amended’ the purposes of the Act’. In order to ensure that NLRA by putting the employee whose rights had remedies promote the policies of the statute, the been violated on trial and letting the law-breaking NLRB should identify the harms caused by the employer o$. Scalia claimed that the employee’s violation and order a remedy designed to ensure violation of the immigration laws was equivalent to, protection of employee rights and equality of or greater than, the employer’s violation of labour bargaining power, as well as encouraging collective law. As a result, Scalia said, an employee’s inability to determination of terms and conditions of mitigate damages the employee is owed means that employment. an injured employee must be prevented from taking In H.K. Porter v. NLRB,1 a case involving bad faith advantage of his employer. Otherwise, Scalia argued, bargaining, the NLRB found that an employer ‘if [the discharged employee is] smart he’d say, how refused to agree to a provision that required the can I mitigate? It’s unlawful for me to get another job. employer to deduct union dues from employee pay … I can just sit home and eat chocolates and get my checks. !e NLRB found that the employer refused back pay’. to agree, not for any legitimate reason, but instead to Of course, these conjectures are pure fantasy with avoid reaching a contract. !us, the NLRB ordered no basis in law. In reality, it is ludicrous to imagine the employer to include the disputed provision in that an employee who loses a low-paying job will be any contract reached. scheming ways to twist the law. Instead, the ANN C. HODGES is Professor of Law at the !e Supreme Court rejected the remedy because employee will be searching for work to keep body University of Richmond Section 8(d) says that good faith bargaining does not and soul together. where she teaches and require the parties to agree, confusing the limits on Workers’ fear of sanctions for violating immigration writes about labour bargaining with limits on remedies. As a result, the laws will make the workers timid about organising in and employment law only remedy le" was an order to go back to bargain the #rst place. If they dare to organise, #ring them the same issue, removing any employer incentive for probably will probably defeat unionisation with no complying with the good faith bargaining employer sanction. !e NLRA does not require requirement. application of rules that limit these remedies. In fact, Remedies for illegally #ring employees for they violate the spirit and the plain language of the law exercising their rights to unionise have fared no by failing to promote the NLRA’s policies. When an better. As amended by the courts, the NLRA’s employee’s losses are not fully remedied it does not standard remedy for anti-union discrimination encourage employers to respect employee legal rights harms employees whose rights have been violated by and discourages other employees from exercising inadequately compensating their losses. It also fails to those rights for fear of su$ering similar harms. 24/2 | International Union Rights | 11 FOCUS | UNITED STATES

A remedy that promoted the NLRA’s policies employers could lock out workers at any time if their would include removing the fear workers feel because purpose was to put economic pressure on the of their co-worker’s discharge. !e only remedy workers. !en, in NLRB v. Brown5, the Court opened addressed to co-workers is the posting of a notice of the door to allowing employers to hire temporary NLRA rights for 60 days. Other remedies that would replacements for locked out workers, #nding it address co-workers’ fears are never ordered. permissible in special circumstances involving a !us, although Congress intended the rights and multi-employer bargaining unit. Subsequently, in protections in the NLRA to be collective rights, Harter Equipment6, the NLRB expanded to all judicial amendments require constrained remedies employers the right to lock out and temporarily that prevent employees from asserting NLRA rights replace employees, for the purpose of economic as collective rights for collective injuries. Employers pressure. Each of these decisions allows readily calculate that #ring a lead organiser can discrimination against workers for their support of Lockouts that quickly kill a union organising campaign and is far the union, despite the NLRA’s clear prohibition on started two years cheaper than operating a unionised workplace. A discrimination based on union activity. reinstatement o$er that is rarely accepted and back !ese decisions have shi"ed the balance of power before the Harter pay reduced by mitigation is a small price to pay. in labour disputes, empowering employers and decision lasted An important principle of the American legal weakening unions, contrary to the purpose of the an average of 67 system is that if there is no remedy for violation of a law. Strikes have declined precipitously, as have right then there is actually no right. !at is precisely threats to strike, while lockouts have increased and days; lockouts the situation created by judicial amendment of lengthened. A"er the Harter NLRB decision, 75 that began five remedies under the NLRA. !anks to decades of percent of lockouts with replacements lasted over a years after the judicial amendments, section 10(c)’s command that year, while before that only 31 percent lasted that NLRA remedies must e$ectuate the NLRA’s policies, long.7 Lockouts that started two years before the decision has become a nullity. decision lasted an average of 67 days. Lockouts that averaged almost began #ve years a"er the decision averaged almost three years in Strikes and Lockouts three years in length. Strikes are labour’s most powerful weapon. length Recognising that, the NLRA protects strikes in two The Effects of Judicial Amendments ways – by Section 7’s right to engage in union and Not surprisingly, the judicial amendments have other concerted activity and by Section 13, stating that weakened the law. Violations are common. the law should not be interpreted to interfere with or Employers can easily resist union organising e$orts ‘diminish in any way the right to strike’ except where and even if a union wins bargaining rights, the the right is expressly limited. Despite this explicit employer can bargain in bad faith without any real language, the Supreme Court in NLRB v. Mackay deterrent. Many union organising campaigns are Radio3 allowed an employer to permanently replace accompanied by unlawful conduct by employers, striking workers. While permanent replacement is not who have little incentive to comply with the law and exactly the same as discharge, permanent replacement every incentive to remain non-union. and the threat of it have severely damaged the right to An industry of anti-union consultants has strike in the United States. developed to assist employers in #ghting unions. Unlike a discharged worker, a permanently Private sector unionisation has dropped signi#cantly, replaced worker has a right to return to the job a"er to a low of 6.4 percent of workers. Strikes, once the the strike – if and when – the replacement leaves. If most powerful union weapon, are rare. Employer this happens quickly, the striking worker may return lockouts and threats of lockouts are common to the job but in many cases replacements stay for negotiation tactics. When employees unionise for long periods of time, making replacement equivalent the #rst time, it is not unusual for contract to discharge. negotiations to fail, leading to removal of the union. Where did the Court #nd this right to replace Judicial erosion of the NLRA is not the only strikers? Not in the law. !e Court presumed that threat to the statute, however. Since the 1980s, the employer had a right to continue operating presidential appointments to the NLRB have during a strike and therefore a right to replace. !e included partisan advocates, with some members This article is based on Court did not even require the employer to show it whose background demonstrates hostility to the a series of articles by could not operate with supervisors or temporary very goals of the law. Most recently, reports indicate the authors first published by Truthout. replacements before permanently replacing strikers. that Doug Seaton, who has made a career out of The full series can be While limiting the right to strike, the Supreme anti-union campaigns, is on President Trump’s short accessed through the Court and the NLRB have expanded employers’ list for nomination to the NLRB. A majority following link: right to lock out employees who want to work. Republican agency with Seaton as a member could http://www.truth-out Initially lockouts were allowed only to change the further undermine Act’s fundamental purpose of .org/news/item/18725 -overruling-the-judicial timing of a work stoppage, moving it to a time when encouraging collective bargaining and free -amendments- the employer was less vulnerable to economic association of workers. %E2%80%93 pressure, such as an o$-season. But in American Ship -what-is-to-be-done Building v. NLRB4, the Supreme Court said that ... Continued on page 28 ... 12 | International Union Rights | 24/2 FOCUS | UNITED STATES

Replaceable Workers, Unconscionable Employers, and a Deeply Disturbing State

In June 2017, the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Union Busting Association and Freedom of Assembly, Maina Kiai Under the NLRA, employers have the right to released the #nal report on his 2016 visit to the US. express ‘any views, argument, or opinion … without His #ndings paint a bleak picture of union rights in threat of reprisal or force or promise of bene#t’. !e the US – in ‘stark contrast’ to the ‘positive role’ that Special Rapporteur raises concerns that in practice the US plays internationally in championing workers’ this section ‘facilitates pervasive employer interference freedom of association rights. with the ability of employees to form or join unions. The Special At the end of his mandate as Special Rapporteur, For example, employers may hold “captive audience” Rapporteur on Kiai took the opportunity to comment on the meetings – which employees are obliged to attend – at intolerance demonstrated by the new Trump which they can aggressively discourage union activity. Freedom of administration in its international relations, noting Employers may also threaten employees’ right to strike Association and with concern that the administration has ‘talked of by emphasising their ability to permanently replace Freedom of taking a radically di$erent approach on all fronts: its striking workers and engage companies to help them engagement with the United Nations, its promotion undermine workers’ organising e!orts (a $4 billion Assembly’s final of human rights abroad, and even its attitude dollar ‘union-busting’ industry). Unions have no right report on his visit towards fundamental rights domestically’. !e to speak during the captive audience meetings, to to the US paints Special Rapporteur points to ‘signals coming from distribute union literature in the workplace, to conduct the current administration’ – including xenophobia, meetings in the workplace without management being a bleak picture of disregard for peaceful protest, endorsement of present, or to hold similar captive-audience meetings’. trade union torture – as ‘deeply disturbing’. !e Special Rapporteur draws particular attention rights in the to the case of the Nissan plant in Canton, Stripped of their rights Mississippi. !e plant is ‘one of only three Nissan country On the National Labour Relations Act (NLRA), plants that are not unionised out of a total of 55 Kiai notes that this legal framework ‘legalises practices manufacturing facilities worldwide; all of these plants that severely infringe workers’ rights to associate’. "e are in the US south’. In December 2016, Industriall coverage of the NLRA excludes a large class of workers, and the United Auto Workers (UAW) submitted such as agricultural and domestic workers, and simultaneous complaints to three OECD National independent contractors, and ‘employers increasingly Contact Points (NCP) alleging ‘aggressive policies categorise workers under these groupings in order to and practices of union avoidance, harassment and prevent them from organising and to avoid the demands intimidation, at the Canton plant . !e complaints to of improved working conditions’, leaving them with ‘no the NCPs in the Netherlands, Japan and France recourse under the NLRA for violation of their rights’. point to the ‘failure of French Renault S.A., Japanese On the right to strike, the report highlights the Nissan Motor Co. and Dutch Renault-Nissan BV to NLRA’s prohibition on ‘secondary boycotts… undertake due diligence’ with regard to the situation preventing workers from soliciting and expressing at the plant. Mediation o$ered by the US NCP was solidarity for strikes among workers of di!erent rejected by Nissan North America in 2015. employers’ and the fact that ‘employers can Nissan wrote to the Special Rapporteur in permanently replace employees engaged in economic February 2017 to defend its position, and ‘emphasised CIARAN CROSS is a Researcher with strikes (those strikes concerning higher wages, shorter that it followed domestic law and paid relatively high ICTUR. The UN Special hours, or better working conditions)’. Such wages for the region’. In his report, Kiai notes that this Rapporteur’s full report replacement workers are able to ‘vote to decertify a response is ‘emblematic of multinational corporations’ on the US can be union on strike’. "e Special Rapporteur notes that duplicity on the issue of workers’ rights. "e poor accessed at www.free ‘the permanent replacement of striking workers environment for labour rights in the United States assembly.net negates the right to strike, stripping employees of their today is almost entirely a legacy of decades of political strongest tool for pressing their demands…’. lobbying by well-funded business interests, who Kiai also highlights issues with the ‘independence outspend workers by several orders of magnitude. and e$ectiveness’ of the National Labour Relations Indeed, some union busting e!orts at the Nissan plant Board (NLRB); the agency’s funding is ‘authorised by in Canton itself were linked to the Center for Worker Congress and is thus prone to partisan interests that Freedom, a special project of the group Americans for can manifest as budget cuts or funding with policy Tax Reform. "e latter is almost entirely funded by riders, preventing the NLRB from pursuing a corporate interests. Whether or not Nissan itself particular agenda’. ... Continued on page 28 ...

24/2 | International Union Rights | 13 ICTUR IN ACTION | INTERVENTIONS

the ILO’s Committee on Freedom of abide by the earlier concluded two and a half years in prison Association has made clear, the collective agreement. The unlawful under Article 402 of the Criminal Egypt arrest, detention and sentencing of termination of individual contacts Code, for inciting workers to Amnesty International reported in trade unionists for reasons and collective agreements, the use participate in an unauthorised April that workers in Egypt have connected with their activities in of disproportionate police force to strike in December at the faced arrest, detention, defence of the interests of workers disperse the workers’ legitimate company Techno Trading Ltd. He investigations and trials ‘constitutes a serious interference protest and the signing of new was ordered to pay the company (including before military courts) with civil liberties in general and contacts under duress constitute 23 million tenge in compensation for exercising their trade union with trade union rights in violations of the rights of workers and banned from involvement in rights. The numerous issues and particular’. ICTUR also observed protected under the fundamental civic activism for two years after incidents catalogued by Amnesty that the proposed membership ILO Conventions – all eight of his release. Kushakbayev is include: thresholds were too high, observing which Georgia has ratified. believed to have been targeted that the CFA has stated that ‘a for his involvement in the labour • In May 2016, after workers minimum requirement of 100 dispute at the Oil Construction organised a peaceful workers … must be reduced’ Company (OCC) - part of state oil demonstration at the Ministry of (Digest of decisions and principles Honduras and gas company KazMunaiGas - Defence-owned Alexandria of the Freedom of Association On 15 April 2017 in the city of in the city of Atyrau, where Shipyard Company, some 25 Committee of the Governing Body Choluteca, near to the ‘Los workers conducted a hunger workers were arrested – still of the ILO, Fifth Edition, 2006, para. Balcanes’ plantation, the General strike to protest the dissolution in pending trial; 14 of them were 283), and that a requirement for 50 Secretary of Sindicato de January 2017 of their trade union detained until October 2016. A founding members was ‘obviously Trabajadores de la Agroindustria and the confederation to which it further 1500 workers have too high’ (Digest, para 284). y Similares (STAS, Union of was affiliated, the Confederation remained suspended from their Agroindustrial and Allied of Independent Trades Unions of jobs. Workers) Moisés Sánchez and Kazakhstan (KNPRK). The • On 23 September 2016 – one his brother Misael - a member of dissolution came after repeated day before a protest organised Georgia the union - were attacked by attempts by KNPRK and its by employees of the Public In January 2017 new unknown assailants armed with member unions to qualify for Transport Authority – police management at the fertiliser handguns and machetes after state re-registration, following forces arrested six workers on plant Rustavi Azot began a leaving a trade union meeting. the adoption of the Trade Union charges of ‘inciting’ workers to process of mass dismissals. The two were held hostage for Law of 2014. Kushakbayev was participate in a strike, According to the Trade Union of some forty minutes and arrested during the OCC trade ‘preventing workers from Metallurgy, Mining and Chemical expressly threatened for their union hunger strike. Between performing their duty’ and Industry Workers of Georgia union activities on Fyffes’s melon 19–24 January, sixty-three more ‘belonging to a banned group’. (TUMMCIWG), the dismissals plantations. Misael Sánchez was oil workers were detained, Two spent six months in pre- were carried out in violation of seriously injured in the attack brought before the court, and trial detention and are still on Georgia’s laws. The union and hospitalised. fined between 489,000 and 1.22 probation. organised a protest on 2 million tenge. The chair of the oil • In February 2017, the Ministry February outside the ICTUR has written to call on the workers’ union, Amin Yeleusinov of Manpower proposed a new management’s office, calling for government to investigate the was also arrested and charged draft Labour Law which the reinstatement of 350 circumstances around the attacks under Article 189 of the Criminal prohibits workers’ strikes in workers who had been fired. on Moisés and Misael Sánchez, as Code for ‘misappropriation or ‘sensitive and strategic Protestors suffered broken ribs well as the campaign of embezzlement’ of property. On facilities’ that would harm and other injuries when they intimidation, disappearances, May 16, 2017, Yeleusinov was ‘national security’; grants the were violently removed from the threats and acts of violence sentenced to two years in prison Prime Minister authority to company building by police. On perpetrated against trade and banned from engaging in any determine what amounts to a 20 March, management unionists in Honduras. The ILO’s trade union activities for five strategic or sensitive facility; unilaterally cancelled the Committee on Freedom of years; he must pay over 8 million and prohibits striking during collective agreement concluded Association has declared that an tenge in damages. Human Rights ‘exceptional times’. The Ministry in 2013 without the trade union’s independent judicial inquiry should Watch report that the president of of Manpower has also consent – again contrary to be instituted immediately to the KNPRK, Larisa Kharkova, is submitted a draft bill on Trade Georgia’s labour law – and tried investigate assaults on the also under investigation on Unions, which requires unions to force workers to sign one-year physical or moral integrity of alleged embezzlement charges. to have at least 30,000 contracts, replacing previous individuals, in order to determine ICTUR has written to the members, and requires a permanent contracts, on threat responsibility, punish those government (prior to sentencing) membership of 300,000 of dismissal. responsible and prevent repetition to support calls for Nurbek workers for the establishment of (Digest, para 48). Kushakbayev’s release from prison a union federation. ICTUR has written to the and to request that the criminal government of Georgia to demand charges against him and Amin ICTUR wrote to remind the Egyptian it take steps to ensure the Yeleusinov are dropped. ICTUR government of its obligations under immediate reinstatement of all Kazakhstan called again on the government to the fundamental ILO conventions – workers who were unlawfully On 7 April 2017, Nurbek comply with the ILO’s request for all of which Egypt has ratified. As dismissed and that Rustavi Azot Kushakbayev was sentenced to amendments to the Trade Union

14 | International Union Rights | 24/2 ICTUR IN ACTION | INTERVENTIONS

Law of 2014 to bring the law into violating the right to peaceful ICTUR has written to the Uzbek compliance with the ILO work through coercion in order government to question the Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Madagascar to obtain unfair pecuniary gain treatment of Urlaeva. As a Association, which Kazakhstan has Forty-three dockworkers from and obstructing enjoyment of member of the ILO, Uzbekistan ratified. The Convention clearly the Port of Toamasina were union rights’. Their sentences has ratified both the Forced states that workers shall have the dismissed after they joined the range from one to six years; Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29) right to establish organisations Syndicat Général Maritime de these were upheld by the Penal and Abolition of Forced Labour ‘without previous authorisation’ Madagascar (SYGMMA) to fight Department No 16 of Supreme Convention, 1957 (No. 105). (Article 2). ICTUR also calls on the for an end to insecure, low-paid Court. Uzbekistan has also made government to make relevant work, and unsafe working commitments to the ILO and World amendments to the Criminal Code, conditions at the port. Despite • On May Day, the Turkish Bank to address the very labour to ensure that legitimate trade SYGMMA’s attempts locally to authorities deployed tear gas violations that Urlaeva has union activities are not subject to have the union recognised at the and rubber bullets to break up a reported in the cotton industry. In criminal sanction. Port of Toamasina, and to get the group of demonstrators December 2016, Uzbekistan workers reinstated, the Société attempting to march towards ratified ILO Convention 87, but this de Manutention des Taksim Square – the site of incident raises serious concerns Marchandises Conventionnelles major anti-Erdogan about the safety and security of Kenya (SMMC) repeatedly refused to demonstrations in 2013. Some those who monitor and report on Legal action has been taken to meet with the union and the 165 people were detained. issues of workers’ rights in prohibit the Kenyan National regional Labour Inspectorate to Uzbekistan. Union of Teachers (KNUT) and its discuss their case, despite a ICTUR has written to the general secretary, Wilson 2014 Supreme Court ruling government to condemn in the Sossion, from making recognising the right of SYGMMA strongest terms the reported mass statements regarding Bridge to organise at the Port of dismissals of trade unionists, and Venezuela International Academies’ (BIA). Toamasina. the violations of fundamental Amidst recent unrest in An injunction was sought by BIA rights and freedoms that have Venezuela, two trade unionists in the wake of criticisms by the ICTUR has written to the occurred since the 2016 coup were murdered. On 13 March ‘Unite for Better Education’ government to remind of its attempt. These sentences add to 2017, Joel Alcalá, a trade union campaign of Education commitments under ILO the catalogue of concerns around official at the state enterprise International, which showed that Conventions 87 and 98, which serious, widespread and on-going Bauxilum, was shot dead in in Kenya BIA students are ‘taught Madagascar has ratified. Article 1 violations of workers’ freedom of Puerto Ordaz, Ciudad Guayana. largely by unqualified, of Convention 98 provides that association in Turkey. Alcalá was until 2015 the overworked, teaching staff’, who workers shall ‘enjoy adequate Secretary General of the ‘are forced to use a scripted protection against acts of anti- Sindicato Único de Trabajadores curriculum-developed in the US’, union discrimination in respect of de la Industria de la Alúmina, which is ‘not approved by their employment’ specifically in Uzbekistan Bauxita y sus Derivados Kenyan authorities’. In February respect of acts calculated to cause On 1 March 2017 – one day (Sutralúmina). On 22 April 2017, 2017 a Kenyan court ordered the the dismissal of or otherwise before she was due to attend a trade union leader Esmin closure of Bridge schools in the prejudice workers because of meeting with officials from the Ramírez was kidnapped in San city of Busia for non-compliance union membership or participation ILO, the ITUC and the World Bank Felix, and was found shot dead with basic educational in union activities. – Elena Urlaeva was arrested in on 23 April in Cuidad Guayana. standards. Tashkent, beaten and forcibly Ramírez was an active member placed in a psychiatric facility. of the Movement 21 labour ICTUR has written to the Kenyan Head of the Human Rights syndicate at the state enterprise government to demand that it to Turkey Alliance of Uzbekistan, Urlaeva is Ferrominera. undertake all necessary measures Criminal sentences against known for monitoring cases of to ensure the fundamental fourteen officials of Turkish union forced labour in Uzbekistan’s Fundamental rights – especially freedoms of workers to take action TÜMTİS’ Ankara branch were cotton fields, and organising those relating to human life and in defence of their interests, upheld in March 2017 by the public demonstrations to call for personal safety – must be fully including freedom of expression. appeal court. TÜMTİS firmly the respect of the right to respected and guaranteed in order According to the ILO’s Committee maintains that the charges, freedom of association and for the rights and freedoms on Freedom of Association, the which date back to November assembly. The ILO’s visit to association enshrined in the ILO right to express opinions through 2007, were politically-motivated: Uzbekistan began on 28 Conventions 87 and 98 to be the press or otherwise is an seven branch officials were February 2017 with the signing exercised. ICTUR called upon the essential aspect of trade union originally arrested in a night-time of a Memorandum of government to promptly rights and should be guaranteed raid after TÜMTİS’ undertook an Understanding with the investigate the circumstances (Digest, para 155). organisation drive at the Horoz government for the extension of around the murders of Joel Alcalá Kargo logistics company. They the ILO Decent Work Country and Esmin Ramírez, to determine were sentenced in 2012 by Programme for 2017-2020. responsibility, and to hold those Ankara 11th Criminal Court for Urlaeva was subsequently responsible to account. ‘founding an organisation for the released on 24 March. purpose of committing crime,

24/2 | International Union Rights | 15 FOCUS | UNITED STATES

California Workers Get Ready For Workplace Immigration Raids

At the end of February immigration agents (MIRA), “there weren’t even enough beds and people descended on a handful of Japanese and Chinese were sleeping on the %oor”. Eight workers detained in restaurants in the suburbs of Jackson, Mississippi that raid were charged with aggravated identity the" in and in nearby Meridian. Fi"y-#ve immigrant cooks, Federal court, for having given a false Social Security dishwashers, servers and bussers were loaded into number to the employer when they were hired. vans and taken to a detention centre 158 miles away “"is latest raid is causing a lot of fear in our in Jena, Louisiana. community”, according to MIRA director Bill In 2008, 481 !eir arrest and subsequent treatment did more Chandler. “"ere’s fear everywhere now because of the workers were than provoke outrage among Jackson’s immigrant threats from Trump, but here in Mississippi our rights activists. Worker advocates in California also history of racism makes fear even stronger”. arrested at a took note of the incident, fearing that it marked the Agustin Ramirez, an organiser for the Howard beginning of a new wave of immigrant raids and International Longshore and Warehouse Union in Industries enforcement actions in workplaces. In response, California, says the Mississippi raid has heightened they’ve written a Bill with legal protections for fear here too. “What we have seen in the past, and the electrical workers, to keep the experience from being duplicated threats from Trump, tell us this is coming. We may not equipment here. At the same time, training sessions have started have had a raid like this here yet, but we can see the factory, in Laurel, to ensure workers know their rights during any job- sky is dark, and we know it’s going to rain. We just related immigration enforcement action. don’t know when”. Mississippi, Once the Mississippi restaurant workers had been !e legislative response in California came from in the middle arrested, they essentially fell o$ the radar screen for United Service Workers West, the union for janitors, of union several days. Jackson lawyer Jeremy Litton, who security guards and airport workers a&liated with represented three Guatemalan workers picked up in the Service Employees International Union. “We negotiations, and the raid, could not get the government to schedule want to lead the nation with the strongest resistance taken to the La hearing dates for them. He was unable to verify that e!orts to protect workers, not just in the community, Salle immigration the other detained immigrants were being held in but in the workplace”, explained David Huerta, the same centre, or even who they were. USWW President. detention centre !e Geo Corporation, formerly known as the In California, with many times the immigrant Wackenhut Corporation, operates the LaSalle population of Mississippi, the potential impact of Detention Center. Geo’s roots go back to the workplace raids is enormous. Of the nation’s Pinkerton Detective Agency, which became estimated eleven million undocumented immigrants, notorious in the #rst half of the twentieth century over 2.6 million live in this state. !ey make up for brutal, violent assaults on unions and strikes. almost half of its farm workers, and over twenty DAVID BACON Today Geo operates 16 immigrant detention percent of its construction workers. Almost one in is a journalist and centres around the country, according to its 2015 every ten California workers is undocumented. !e photographer in San Francisco. He is a annual report. It runs privatised prisons as well, National Restaurant Association says that of the member of the some of which have been investigated by the Federal country’s twelve million restaurant workers, nine Editorial Board government over bad conditions and understa&ng. percent are undocumented, while the Restaurant of International !e LaSalle facility has 1160 beds. Litton says it is Opportunities Center estimates that in large cities Union Rights normally full, so taking in an additional 55 detainees they make up almost half of that workforce. would result in severe overcrowding. In cooperation with labour attorney Monica !e use of Jena’s immigrant jail to hold workers Guizar, USWW therefore worked with San Francisco detained in workplace raids has a bitter history in Assembly Member David Chiu to cra" ‘AB 450’. !e Mississippi. In 2008, 481 workers were arrested at a Bill, introduced 24 March, addresses workplace Howard Industries electrical equipment factory, in immigration raids in four ways: Laurel, Mississippi, in the middle of union negotiations. !ey too were taken to the La Salle • AB 450 requires employers to ask for a judicial detention centre. !ere they were fed peanut butter warrant before granting access to a workplace by sandwiches at mealtimes, and according to Patricia Ice, agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorney for the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance (ICE) 16 | International Union Rights | 24/2 FOCUS | UNITED STATES

•!e bill prohibits employers from sharing comparing it with the Social Security database. ICE con#dential information, like Social Security then told employers to #re those immigrants whose numbers, without a court order information didn’t pass muster. !e government • If there is an immigration raid, or if an employer developed an enormous database, called E-Verify, for is told by ICE to hand over information rooting out undocumented workers. !ousands were employees provide on the I-9 immigration status #red, and in 2010 alone ICE audited 2000 employers. form, the bill requires an employer to notify the Anger over these enforcement actions has a long Labor Commissioner, the workers themselves, history in California. Los Angeles janitors, members and their union representatives of USWW, sat down in downtown intersections to •AB 450 authorises the Labor Commissioner to protest #rings by Able Building Maintenance in 2011. certify workers who report claims against their !e union fought similar #rings in Stanford employer, prohibiting employers from retaliating University cafeterias, and among custodians in the against them, and helping them to gain visa status buildings of Apple and Hewlett-Packard. Two as witnesses in a legal proceeding thousand seamstresses protested their #rings at American Apparel. Members of UNITE HERE, the Called ‘!e Immigrant Worker Protection Act’, union for hotel workers, mounted a hunger strike AB 450 was co-authored by Bay Area Assembly outside the Hyatt in San Diego over the same issue. Members Phil Ting and Rob Bonta, and State In the Bay Area 214 workers at the Paci#c Steel Senator Scott Weiner. “Trump’s threats of massive foundry fought #rings for almost a year, while at the deportations are spreading fear among California Alameda County Industries recycling plant in San workers, families and employers”, Chiu said, adding Leandro they even went on strike to try to stop them. The irony is that that the bill “goes beyond California’s existing defence Over the years, unions have charged that employers undocumented of immigrants to o!er new legal protections for use the #rings when workers try to organise, or when individuals in our workplaces”. they are negotiating contracts. Marielena Hincapie, workers In a highly publicised event on the Arizona- executive director of the National Immigration Law contribute about Mexico border on 12 April, Attorney General Je$ Center, says, “raids drive down wages because they $13 billion into Sessions emphasised the Trump administration’s intimidate workers, even citizens and legal residents. hard line on enforcement. Chiu cited Sessions’ "e employer brings in another batch of employees and the Social previous statements and orders as a reason for the continues business as usual, while people who protest get Security trust bill’s new measures of protection. Sessions told the targeted and workers get deported. Raids really fund, and are press in Arizona that enforcement would now demonstrate the employer’s power”. prioritise identity the" among other factors. “And it Dramatising the relationship between ICE and disqualified is here that criminal aliens, and the coyotes, and the employers, Leon Rodriguez, who formerly headed from receiving document-forgers seek to overthrow our system of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, any benefits lawful immigration”, he announced. recently le" to take a job with the Seyfarth Shaw law In using phrases like “identity the"” and #rm in Washington, DC.! ese management-side that those “document-forgers” Sessions is treating as a criminal attorneys are viewed by most unions as extremely contributions o$ense the means used by every undocumented anti-union and anti-worker. In response to the are supposed to worker to get a job. Like all other workers, Mississippi raid, Rodriguez stated that “the undocumented immigrants must supply Social administration has been very clear about its intention pay for Security numbers to employers to get hired. But since to broaden the classes of individuals who could be the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, they subject to deportation”. In other words, workers. have been prevented from applying for the numbers. To help workers protect themselves in the Workers therefore invent them, or use numbers workplace, the ILWU, Filipino Advocates for Justice belonging to others. and several other groups organised a training In the past, the Federal government has occasionally session about actions workers can take on the job, in interpreted this, not only as a reason for deportation, the face of a raid or I-9 #rings. Workers from but as a Federal felony. Sessions is threatening to make Alameda County Industries acted out a teatro based these occasional charges mandatory in every case. !e on their own strike to stop the company from irony is that undocumented workers, using those bad terminating them for not having papers. In another numbers, contribute about $13 billion into the Social skit, they dramatised the way workers might Security trust fund, and are disquali#ed from receiving demand that their boss bar ICE agents from the any bene#ts that those contributions pay for. workplace if they have no court order. Other unions Heavy immigration enforcement against workers is described their experiences over the past decade in hardly new. Under President Bush, large-scale raids organising workers to #ght o$ raids and #rings. led to the detention and deportation of thousands of “Our experience tells us that workers can resist workers, especially in meatpacking plants. At raids at work, and the more they do that the better Smith#eld Foods in North Carolina and off they are”, Ramirez says. “We are getting prepared, Agroprocessors in Iowa, dozens were jailed, charged trying to give people as much information as with felonies for using bad Social Security numbers. possible. We’re trying to spread this idea - that in Under President Obama, ICE agents audited the addition to AB 450, workers can take action on the information provided by workers on I-9 forms, job to protect themselves”. 24/2 | International Union Rights | 17 FOCUS | UNITED STATES

The Contested Origins and Future of ‘Right to Work’ Laws

Everything about so-called ‘right to work’ is contested. labour’s use of the phrase to describe the Clayton Its history, purpose, promoters, e$ects, even its name Antitrust Act of 1914, which declared that ‘the labor all remain unsettled. Contrary to how it may sound to of a human being is not a commodity or article of one not steeped in the nuances of American labour commerce’, and thereby opened the door for workers ‘Right to work’ history or law, ‘right to work’ is not a reference to the to legally organise)2. is quickly right to one’s job or the right to employment, or a Ruggles’ editorial began with a suggested 22nd rebuke to the norm of American at-will employment. Amendment to the Constitution, enshrining the becoming the Rather, ‘right to work’ means the right of a worker to concept of right-to-work in the nation’s founding norm in the US; be represented by a union, but not pay any union dues document. Published as Europe and Asia were even states long- or fees. !ough it is a relatively obscure issue, crumbling under the weight of World War II, especially now that private sector labour density is at Ruggles explained that the right-to-work issue ‘is a known as union its lowest since joining a union became a protected greater crisis than the international situation, for on strongholds in right in 1935, it has become a central tenet of its solution may depend our ability to face the dark have passed American conservatism and one of the primary international future’3. battle#elds of contemporary labour law. Ruggles and the NRTW have spread the idea that ‘right to work’ !e US is today at a point where ‘right to work’ is right-to-work ‘both as a legal principle and a title’ laws quickly becoming the norm. States have been was Ruggles’s ‘brainchild’, and that it spread permitted to pass ‘right to work’ laws since the Ta"- organically among disa$ected workers. However, Hartley Act amended the Wagner Act in 1947. At decades earlier, one can #nd articles with titles such the time of writing, a majority of states (28) have as ‘Right to Work’ and ‘Right to Work: !e Story of adopted such laws. Most recently, states long-known the Non-striking Miner’4. !ese appeared for as union strongholds in the industrial Midwest, such decades prior to Ruggles’ editorial, always posing the as Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan, have passed #ght as one between pro-union and anti-union ‘right to work’ laws. In Kentucky, individual counties workers, with employers ostensibly on the sidelines began passing ‘right to work’ laws, and the Sixth open to whatever the workers decide. By 1930, Circuit Court of Appeals has recently held that the management organisations, such as the Merchants’ laws were permissible1. and Manufacturers’ Association had an ‘Open Shop !e story of the development of ‘right to work’ is Labor Temple’ and ‘free employment bureau,’ which one of divergent beginnings. On the one hand, there ‘guarantees to the independent worker the right to was a string of early railroad cases, where African- work… guarantees to the employer the right to American workers challenged the closed shop as a employ…[and] guarantees to the public a continuity means of gaining rights on the job, arguing that the of production, construction and service’5. Constitution guaranteed black workers the right to Right-to-work was promoted as a tonic for all be full members of majority white unions. On the workers for all their problems, o"en with antithetical other hand, a more cynical push for ‘right to work’ rationales. !e idea was held out to white ethnic was developed by business and racist interests, workers as a way to distance themselves from arguing that the Constitution gave white workers the workers of other ethnicities and races, while being right not to be a member of a union with black held out to black workers as a way of achieving full MOSHE Z. MARVIT workers. !ese two strands – represented by equality in the workplace. Indeed, the 1903 article, is a labour and contemporaries Ed Teague and Vance Muse – both ‘Right to Work’, was #lled with quotes by rank and employment attorney provide the legal beginnings of ‘right to work’, but it #le miners such as JR Gorman of West Pittston, who and a fellow with The is this latter strain that has persisted. proclaimed to the reporter, ‘I don’t join a union Century Foundation because I object to having some Dago I never saw A Conservative ‘Magna Carta’ before coming and ordering me to stop work or to go !e beginnings of the concept of ‘right to work’ to work again’. can be traced to the American Civil War, and in the Ruggles took sole credit for coming up with the labour battles that followed. But the modern idea of right-to-work and described how the idea proponents of ‘right to work’ – chief among them, was quickly picked up and promoted by a notorious !e National Right to Work Committee and Legal Texan named Vance Muse 6. Muse was famous for Defense Foundation (NRTW) – trace the concept to #ghting against women’s su$rage, against restrictions an editorial by the Dallas newspaperman William on child labour, against the 8-hour workday, and for Ruggles on Labor Day 1941. Entitled ‘Magna Carta’, the ‘Americanisation of the Supreme Court’ to Ruggles’ editorial consciously re-appropriated counter liberal foreign jurists like Felix Frankfurter . 18 | International Union Rights | 24/2 FOCUS | UNITED STATES

Muse and his group adopted the right-to-work having ‘recognised that such arrangements represent mantle and set out to explain that without such a law an ‘impingement’ on the First Amendment rights of that would allow workers not to join a duly elected non-members’. In extensive dicta, Alito questioned union, ‘white women and white men will be forced the Constitutionality of agency fees, as well as the into organisations with black African apes whom opt-out regime (whereby objectors have to opt out, they have to call ‘brother’ or lose their jobs’8. rather than having members opt in), and explained that the Supreme Court had never critically (In)Equality in the Closed Shop examined these issues. Alito essentially invited new At approximately the same time that right-to-work #rst amendment challenges to the very issue of was being spread by Muse and others, the #rst ‘right agency fees in the public sector13. to work’ lawsuits were being brought forth on exactly !e National Right to Work Legal Defense the opposite premise. In Teague v. Brotherhood of Foundation, which brought Knox, was paying Locomotive Firemen and Engineers9, a black railroad attention. Two years later, they were before the #reman named Ed Teague was similarly challenging Supreme Court again in Harris v. Quinn, a case Fair share fees, the structures of the closed shop. involving home healthcare personal assistants14. !is which oblige Teague argued that as a member of the union, he class of workers were excluded from coverage under was entitled to equal treatment and rights in the the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), and workers to pay union and on the job. However, as a black employee, the case involved state laws that categorised them as for those Teague su$ered discrimination in the union and at public employees for the purpose of granting them activities that are the job, and equality in the union would be a source union rights. !e majority opinion in Harris held that of power for disenfranchised workers. In District these home healthcare workers in Illinois and every germane to Court, Teague couched his case in statutory other state that had a similar programme are only collective construction, arguing that the Railway Labor Act ‘partial’ or ‘quasi’ public employees—as opposed to bargaining, have (RLA) created a duty on the part of the union. ‘full-%edged public employees.’ As such, the Court was Teague’s attorney, Charles Hamilton Houston, unwilling to extend Abood to cover these workers. In been subject to who was a prominent black attorney and law paragraph a"er paragraph, Alito wrote that the Abood repeated judicial professor (and pro-labour and pro-New Deal) #led Court’s ‘analysis is questionable…seriously erred… challenge in subsequent cases on behalf of black railroad workers fundamentally misunderstood…failed to appreciate… that relied more and more on constitutional does not seem to have anticipated…did not foresee recent years, on arguments. Two of these cases, Tunstall v. the practical problems… [and] a critical pillar of the constitutional Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Engineers10, Abood Court’s analysis rests on an unsupported grounds & Steele v. Louisville and Nashville Railway Co.11, empirical assumption’. Alito was essentially begging were granted cert by the US Supreme Court and for someone to petition the Court with a case that became known as the ‘Railroad Cases’. Penn Law would allow the justices to address the First Professor Sophia Lee has succinctly summarised the Amendment issues involved in fair share agreements. crux of Houston’s argument in these cases as follows: In 2015, the Supreme Court accepted such a case ‘Industrial democracy, like political democracy, must in Friedrichs v. CTA. Based on the cases leading up to enfranchise black workers’12. Importantly, these cases Friedrichs, as well as the oral arguments, there was a were not anti-union. Houston – along with the general consensus that the Supreme Court was likely National Association for the Advancement of to impose ‘right to work’ on all public-sector Colored People (NAACP) and American Civil employees. !en Justice Antonin Scalia died Liberties Union (ACLU) which joined on as amici – unexpectedly on February 2016, and the Court issued believed that labour o$ered black workers their best a 4-4 decision on the case the following month. immediate chance to gain a voice and equality in the !is provided labour a brief respite, but it is likely workplace. !ey were simply arguing that black that a new case, Janus v. AFSCME, will be heard by workers must have a voice and equality in the union. the Supreme Court. !e case raises similar challenges as Friedrichs to fair share fees on Challenges to Fair Share Fees constitutional grounds, and with a full court now !e alternative to ‘right to work’ laws are fair share seated that leans heavily to the right and has shown or agency fees that enable workers represented by the deep hostility to labour, the Court is likely to agree union to choose not to join or pay for the political or with the National Right to Work Committee. social activities of the union, but oblige them to still pay for those activities that are germane to collective 1 UAW v. Hardin County, 842 F.3d 407 (6th Cir. 2016). bargaining. !ese arrangements have been subject to 2Clayton Act, ch. 323, §6, 38 Stat. 730 (1914), (codified at 15 repeated judicial challenge in recent years. U.S.C. 17). In response, to the Clayton Act, Samuel Gompers Supreme Court Justice Alito has issued a string of proclaimed that the Clayton Act was the ‘Magna Carta upon stinging decisions in the last few years that have laid which the working people will rear their structure of industrial the groundwork to overturning the Court’s 1977 freedom.’ Jeff Vlasek, Hold Up the Sign and Lie Like a Rug: Abood v. Detroit Board of Education precedent, How Secondary Boycotts Received Another Lease on Life, 32 which permitted fair share fees in the public sector. J.CORP.L. 179, 181 (2006). Starting with Knox v. SEIU in 2012, Alito cast doubt on the Court’s precedent regarding fair share fees as ... Continued on page 28 ... 24/2 | International Union Rights | 19 FOCUS | UNITED STATES

Deadly Picket-Lines in US Labour History

Dead men tell no tales; that is, until the living give Dialectics of Violence them voice. From 1870 to 1970, a veritable victims’ !e Great Railway Strike of 1877 provided a chorus of no fewer than 1160 fatalities was amassed watershed moment in American labour history. It during labour dispute confrontations within the began in protest of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad’s United States of America. Each was simultaneously decision to uphold the company’s annual dividend an expression of and catalyst within the dialectical while reducing wages during a period of severe evolution of US labour-management relations. To economic depression; and quickly spread across thee they sing. railways, industries, and state lines, disrupting commerce on #rst the Eastern seaboard and Strike-Fatality Overview ultimately nationwide. Before its end, the nation had Violence on America’s picket lines was protracted, witnessed its #rst general strike, the deployment of Between 1877 widespread and intense. Fatalities, the most extreme police, numerous state and municipal militias, and to 1947, the US outcome of violence, were incurred in at least 244 federal troops against groups of non-seditious separate strike events, more than a dozen industries, citizens, the destruction and looting of numerous labour movement thirty-eight states, and seventy-two years. Many more railway yards, and the deaths of more than one experienced the resulted in various forms of intimidation, non-fatal hundred individuals. Prior to the Great Strike, most violent and injuries, and property damage. Strike event names ‘labour violence’ had generally been considered such as the Battle of Homestead (1892), Battle of Blair sporadic and non-threatening. In its wake, the bloody era of Mountain (1921), and Colorado Mine War (1913-14) reigning elitist sense of insulation from le"ist politics any Western testify to the ferocity with which agents of capital and and class based struggles was shattered, ushering industrialised labour advanced and / or defended their perceived instead the rise of the ‘labour question’: a multi-sided rights to property and labour over the course of an and contentious discursive formation that posed nation: strikers, era widely recognised as the most violent and bloody concerns centring on either problems for the newly organisers of any Western industrialised nation. While likely true emerging industrial society for collective labour or and their that the vast majority of strikes involved no violence, the problem of collective labour for the new those that did (especially those involving fatalities industrial society. Alerted to the disruptive potential sympathisers which are more likely to be recorded, veri#ed and / or of large-scale labour insurgency, the overarching comprised nearly compiled than lesser outcomes) a$ord traceable response by America’s political and industrial elite two-thirds of the patterns and insights. was to hone the means of repression. Public and First, the commonly used term ‘labour violence’ is private arsenals were built and stocked with updated classifiable belied by the fact that strikers, organisers, and / or weaponry. Militia units were re-sta$ed with typically victims their sympathisers comprised nearly two-thirds of middle-class personnel and sometimes upper class the classi#able victims. Another ten percent were elites. Army o&cials openly lobbied for strike duty bystanders: leaving less than one-fourth of the and found themselves in competition with the rise of victims to be divided among strike-breakers, private police forces such as the Pinkertons. company guards, and / or state agents. Second, Reformist impulses only began to gain traction deaths were concentrated within the extraction and a"er the Pullman Railway Strike of 1894. Like the PAUL F. LIPOLD, transportation industries. Coal mining alone Great Strike, Pullman was a violent national a$air Ph.D. Sociology, is an independent scholar accounted for roughly one-third of the deaths with centred mainly on the railways, this time resulting in whose interests include another 199 (18.1 percent) on the railroads. !ird, thirty-four deaths. Even more alarming to labour-management the regional distribution changed over time. Initially, industrialists, Pullman spread to the rails as a violence and political strike fatalities were most heavily concentrated in sympathy strike and propagated the Socialist career repression the Northeast and to a slightly lesser extent the of its leader, Eugene V. Debs. !e apparent Midwest. As industrialisation spread, the violence intractability of labour strife in conjunction with the shi"ed to the West and ultimately South. Fourth, growing spectre of radicalism propagated a non- 97.3 percent of the fatalities occurred between statist platform for reform. !e e$orts crystallised in eruption of the Great Railway Strike of 1877 and the formation of the National Civic Federation passage of the Ta"-Hartley Act of 1947: an era over (NCF) in 1900, an employers’ organisation which the course of which evolved a discomforting and exploited philosophical di$erences between incendiary blend of economic desperation, labour American labour organisations by advocating militancy, employer intransigence, political voluntary recognition of and collective bargaining uncertainty, and fatal resolve sandwiched between with non-le"ist unions as a means of dissuading spans of relative labour quiescence. militancy and radicalism. 20 | International Union Rights | 24/2 FOCUS | UNITED STATES

Yet most US capitalists remained ill-disposed to capstone to a legal-juridical regime that obviated key compromise, earning instead an ‘exceptional’ incendiary issues and molli#ed con%ict as US reputation in regards their exuberant defence of the corporations readied for pro#t during the early stages ‘open-shop’ and ‘right to work’. Spearheading these of Pax Americana. E$ective labour tactics such as e$orts, the National Association of Manufacturers sympathy strikes, general strikes, wildcat strikes, and (NAM) re-orientated itself in 1903 as a counter- sit-down strikes were outlawed; the right to hire formation to independent trade unions and became replacement workers was legally enshrined; the de-facto arch-nemesis to the American Federation of National Labor Relations Board was established to Labor (AFL). !e NAM lobbied the government in adjudicate grievances; and union leaders were forced defence of managerial prerogatives and instructed its to sign non-Communist a&davits or risk members in e$ective zero-tolerance anti-union tactics. decerti#cation. Le"ist inspired leaders had historically Striking unionists were thus frequently confronted been some of the most courageous, inclusive, and with strike-breakers, the threats of armed guards, successful within the American labour movement. But court injunctions, and the direct deployment of from the dubious trial and execution of the Chicago repressive state agents, propagating much bloodshed. anarchists a"er the 1886 Haymarket A$air, to the !e US Commission on Industrial Relations World War I era repression of the International convened during an intense period of labour unrest Workers of the World (IWW) sponsored strikes, to the punctuated by the 1910 bombing of the Los Angeles Palmer Raids of the 1920s, they were scarcely tolerated Times building and resultant deaths of twenty if not persecuted or killed. !e institutionalisation of persons. !e Commission had been proposed by the labour thus came with a conservative bent, the le" Republican Ta" administration as a means to forsaken behind its iron gates. Passage of the ostensibly investigate the calamitous state of labour 1947 Taft-Hartley a$airs while besmirching organised labour, which Closing Thoughts had been implicated in the bombing as a means of Neither violence nor repression received mention Act provided the lashing out against the anti-union sentiments of the within Werner Sombart’s 1906 classic Why is there capstone to a paper’s owner. Somewhat ironically, as the no Socialism in the United States?, a seminal legal-juridical Commission dragged on and investigations swelled statement regarding the laggard state of the to include numerous other events such as the American Socialist movement relative to that of regime that Patterson Silk Strike and Ludlow Massacre, its #nal Sombart’s native Germany. How much this violence obviated key report identi#ed four major causes of unrest: (1) impacted the uniquely conservative political bent of incendiary issues unjust distribution of wealth; (2) high American labour and society remain open topics of unemployment; (3) inequality before the law; and debate even to the present. Sombart’s omission and mollified (4) the denial of labour’s rights to organise into might be interpreted as a denial of violent conflict as US independent unions and collectively bargain. repression’s impact. So, too, he may have implicitly corporations Of course, the state had been a key determinant recognised confrontation as a necessary feature of in shaping the very conditions that the Commission Socialism’s expectant triumph. readied for profit seemingly condemned. Su&cient support for We aim to leave no such ambiguity. !e epoch of during the early labour’s recognition might never have been violent contention between capital and labour was stages of Pax mustered except for the exigencies of World War I largely a product of rather primitive markets in and the Great Depression. !e outbreak of the Great which the rules and rights associated with governing Americana War in Europe and subsequent entry of the United workplace con%ict were still hotly contested. But States into combat required heretofore unknown primitive markets and non-institutionalised labour- levels of co-ordination for the purposes of wartime capital relations existed in other early capitalist production. Conservative labour unions were nations as well. In the US, the law and repressive brought into partnership along the lines advocated apparatus (both state and private) were employed by the NCF years earlier with the expectation that more aggressively to defeat and / or contain the they would police their own. Hopes that this would labour movement. Part of this heavier use of LARRY W. ISAAC, Ph.D., is the Gertrude be a lasting arrangement were crushed like the many repression, both de jure and armed force, was likely Conaway Vanderbilt post-war strikes aimed at protecting wartime gains. due to the perceived threat to capital associated with Professor and Chair of Picket line bloodshed spiked as US employers fought the rather unique combination of race and ethnic the Department of to implement their ‘American Plan’ for company as immigration streams populating the labour force. Sociology at Vanderbilt opposed to independent unions; and again in the !e battle for worker rights was o"en coupled with University, USA throes of the Great Depression as employers openly other forms of contention over recognition and resisted legal declarations of labour’s rights to citizenship rights as well. In addition to the vast organise and collectively bargain. At least 130 number of strike deaths, workers paid, too, with strikers and picketers were killed during the New their lives for participating in non-strike labour Deal Era: of whom roughly one third lost their lives actions. Between 1916 and 1941, 240 perished in a"er the Supreme Court upheld the Wagner Act in such actions. !e overwhelming majority of these 1937. victims were either African-American and / or IWW Following World War II, America’s picket lines did members, suggesting that to be both black and ‘red’ not erupt with the accustomed sustained violence. Passage of the 1947 Ta"-Hartley Act provided the ... Continued on page 28 ... 24/2 | International Union Rights | 21 REPORT | SOUTH AFRICA

New South African Federation Prioritises Marginalised

Militant Congress of South African Trade Unions servicing, have also joined SAFTU. Ex-COSATU (COSATU) unionists in the 1980s swore the federation a&liate, the Food & Allied Workers Union, came would never become a transmission belt for party over in its entirety whilst other unions joined as politics. But like other post-independence African independents. A further 16 union observers at the SAFTU’s unions COSATU succumbed to temptation. Sucked Congress may enter the federation at a later stage. aspirations are into crippling ANC politics it expelled its largest and In a departure from COSATU’s single sector union most independent union, the National Union of Metal style of organising, SAFTU embraces both industrial lofty and inspired Workers of South Africa (NUMSA) in 2014 and its and general unions. !is raises the sticky question of by the general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, the following year. how to build power in a particular sector and also the organisational !ese expulsions followed years of poor servicing, temptation for single sector unions to poach members in#ghting, lack of recruitment and failure to from general, or smaller unions to build their power. power of COSATU organise millions of workers in atypical jobs. !is As a number of SAFTU unions operate in the same in its days under breakdown was dramatically highlighted when sectors the congress strongly discouraged apartheid. Now it COSATU’s then largest union, the National Union of membership poaching. Mergers, co-operation and Mineworkers (NUM), lost 50,000 members on the support for smaller a&liates were encouraged. needs a strong Rustenburg platinum belt to the Association of !e popular Vavi emerged as the general secretary. organisational Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU). Leadership came from a range of sectors including the backbone and a !is followed a police massacre of 34 mine workers public service, metal and food. Regrettably however, (78 injured) in 2012 during an illegal strike, which despite the federations’ commitment to empowering focus on the NUM failed to support. women, none are present in the leadership. servicing !e once mighty COSATU - which played a SAFTU is independent from political parties. It is members critical role in the downfall of apartheid - now a socialist in%ected federation with a Pan-African wobbles in a dangerously weakened state. outlook. It will set up a political and ideological commission to establish how to engage on the Launch of New Federation question of political in%uence and power. Some On 21 April this year, a new federation arose – delegates supported NUMSA’s intention to establish South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU). a workers’ party. !e federation aims to foster At the founding congress a constitution, name and worker-controlled structures with high levels of logo were adopted by 1400 delegates from 24 unions leadership accountability to members. !is with 700,000 members. democratic focus extends into the membership it SAFTU emerges a"er two years of discussion on aims to recruit, which will include workers from the trade union unity. Initially talks were held between informal sector as well as the unemployed. NACTU (National Council of Trade Unions), FEDUSA (Federation of Unions of South Africa) Organisation & Servicing is King and Vavi on the basis that unions should be SAFTU’s aspirations are lo"y and inspired by the DR KALLY FORREST independent from employers and political parties, organisational power of COSATU in its days under is a senior researcher worker-controlled and democratic. However both of apartheid. But it will not have the impetus that anti- at the University of the former later withdrew from talks. Negotiations apartheid struggles gave the union movement in those the Witwatersrand’s Society Work & nonetheless continued and in September 2015, 26 times. Its #rst National Executive Committee (NEC) Development Institute unions resolved to search for unity. A Workers’ meeting in May showed an awareness of the need to and a former editor of Summit convened in April 2016 and was attended by distinguish itself from COSATU. Its deliberations the South African 1500 delegates, representing 52 unions. Signalling recognised the necessity for a strong organisational Labour Bulletin the new federation’s rootedness in working class backbone and a focus on servicing members. Guided communities, 22 civil society organisations were by Congress resolutions it %eshed out the detail of how invited as observers. At the Summit the launch of a to make these a reality. South Africa post-apartheid is new federation was endorsed. full of good policies and laws but their implementation is o"en poor. SAFTU wants to avoid this pattern. SAFTU’s Membership & Leadership !e federation’s worker centred principles were Many SAFTU members come from NUMSA but immediately enforced when NEC members travelled some independent unions have also brought in to each province to organise rallies and report back to substantial membership. Some splinters from ex- workers and communities on the launch of SAFTU COSATU a&liates, formed a"er factional struggles and its principles. Countrywide visits merged with its o"en in response to corruption and lack of next crucial organisational task - to recruit 76 percent 22 | International Union Rights | 24/2 REPORT | SOUTH AFRICA of South Africa’s unorganised workers. SAFTU has set national meetings and decent education the ambitious target of one million members by the programmes. It may need to engage with state end of the year. It aims to reach out to workers in ‘fast funded organisations like the Development Institute food shops, restaurants, casinos, horse racing and for Training, Support and Education for Labour other entertainment industries, workers under labour (DITSELA) to force them to again become dynamic brokers, the unemployed, community members and vehicles for workers’ education. informal traders’. However the unionists in SAFTU mainly have Addressing Socio-Economic Concerns experience of organising in the formal industrial and SAFTU seeks to promote its organisational, public sectors. Organising atypical, casualised, economic and political power through the migrant and informal workers will require creative conducting of campaigns. To this end it will launch a strategies, which SAFTU has yet to articulate. !ere is campaign with AMCU (not yet a&liated) to focus some evidence of informal workers piggybacking on on jobs and the economy. !is will entail debate on the power of industrial unions elsewhere in Africa, economic policy something the federation has not SAFTU’s and SAFTU will need to be open to exploring such yet spelt out. Together with AMCU it will demands include new ways of organising. !ere are also a number of commemorate the 5th Anniversary of the Marikana formations organising waste pickers, informal traders massacre. !is will be followed by a march to the the banning of and own account workers in South Africa, and Union Buildings in November and a conference on labour brokers, SAFTU will have to be su&ciently %exible to work the Future of South Africa in December 2017. an end to with, and learn from, these organisations. !ese events will focus on SAFTU’s demands for SAFTU does not aim to compete with COSATU the banning of labour brokers and an end to casualisation of but hopes to attract workers through quality of its casualisation in favour of decent work. It will also labour, and servicing and its socio/economic campaigns. A task demand an end to job losses and the scrapping of the addressing team of high-level leadership will make recently co-determined minimum wage of R3500 a recommendations to the next NEC on systems to month. !is will be contentious with some arguing problems around apply across a&liates. !is will be expressed in a that recently amended laws require workers to be limitations on the Service Charter to set servicing standards. One of its made permanent a"er three months and that most right to strike strategies is to create an Organising Operations workers earn below the R3500 minimum and raising Centre sta$ed by experienced o&cials to co-ordinate it to this level will be a struggle in itself. Enforcement recruitment and servicing campaigns. Alongside this however is an issue and perhaps SAFTU’s demands a Call Centre will operate sta$ed by people trained speak to this weakness in the state. in SAFTU’s ‘Protocols for Recruitment Framework’, !e Congress listed a host of socio-economic unions’ scope, and the basics of labour law, to enable demands to address – including the crisis in public them to give immediate advice where possible. education, transformation of state enterprises, Consolidating di$erent a&liates’ organisational nationalisation of banks, problems around cultures will be one of SAFTU’s most di&cult and limitations on the right to strike, farm evictions, immediate tasks. Contrary to COSATU’s intolerant violence against women and children, legalisation of ethos it will need to encourage open debate that takes informal mining and state corruption. into account di$ering ideologies. An acceptance of workers’ control will be central to this. SAFTU places Conclusion a large emphasis on conducting campaigns, which is SAFTU is now the second largest federation in one strategy to reach isolated workers. However it South Africa (COSATU’s one million membership is needs to balance campaigning with the building of in decline). Optimism and excitement su$used the solid structures to give its campaigns depth. Building launch. !is enthusiasm must now translate into the workers control will need #rst to happen in the hard work that organising from below implies. workplace wherever possible and ways of ensuring SAFTU’s task is additionally complex because it this will need to be carefully explored. prioritises the marginalised - the lowest paid, Functioning local and provincial structures, informal traders and the unemployed. !is could recruitment and other campaigns will be dependent on galvanise massive support. Commented Vavi, ‘we strong workplace links while workers taking ownership must revive the hopes of the working class, build a of their federation will reduce capacity problems. To mighty, mass movement and mobilise workers and this end SAFTU aims to develop systems, rules and poor communities at work and on the streets to procedures to ensure a living culture of democracy. It assert their power and start the #ght-back’. will be obligatory, for example, for a&liates to take One of its biggest challenges is not to sell hope mandates for NEC meetings, and therea"er to report without the strategies and capacity to take back directly to members. organisation forward. It will be operating in a hostile Independence from the state and management environment; unlike COSATU, it will not have the implies #nancial autonomy. SAFTU asks for R1 a support of an ANC alliance. Workers’ organisation month from each member of its a&liated unions in has been neglected for years and slow organisation subscription fees. !is will allow for baseline and education will be necessary to build worker functioning but it will still need to raise money from power before it can take on the multiple inequalities sympathetic organisations to ensure regional and that plague South African society. 24/2 | International Union Rights | 23 ICTUR IN ACTION | ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCIL REPORT 2017

ICTUR Administrative Council 2017

The 2017 annual session of in securing the affiliations of a Daniel Blackburn being coal mine. The UMMI was ICTUR’s Administrative Council number of new affiliate unions commissioned to write a report established in 1960 and was held Friday 9 June, in Room during 2017. on the proposed Business and registered under Iranian law. Due IV, ILO building, Geneva, • Promotion of the reference book Human Rights Binding Treaty for to the repression of independent Switzerland, from 1-3pm. The Trade Unions of the World, the Centre for Research on unions, the UMMI has been unable meeting was attended by published in 2016, continued to Multinational Corporations to bargain collectively with representatives of the education be an important focus for (SOMO) as part of a project employers to ensure that they (EI), food (IUF), public sector (PSI), ICTUR, with a new edition involving the ITUC and ITF as adhere to health and safety industry (Industriall), and transport expected in or around 2020. well as a number of European standards, and this situation has (ITF) global union federations, as • International Union Rights NGOs. led directly to deaths and serious well as the ITUC and the regional journal remains ICTUR’s key • And over the course of the year injuries. The Government is in West African body OTUWA. publication ICTUR drafted more than 40 breach of its obligation to Representatives of unions from • The world map 2017 edition protest letters in response to recognise the principle of freedom France, Ghana, Iran, Japan, has been well-received, and it is dozens of cases of violations of of association and pressure should Liberia, the Philippines, Russia, being translated into trade union rights worldwide. be brought upon it to ratify both Zambia and Zimbabwe joined Portuguese and Spanish Convention 87 on Freedom of those present, including lawyers editions with the support of This year the Council heard from Association and Convention 98 on and NGO representatives from ICTUR’s affiliate, the Brazilian speakers representing the Right to Organise and several countries. The session union-side law firm Crivelli organisations that have worked Collective Bargaining. Those opened with the annual report of Advogados Associados. with ICTUR on recent projects demanding reform should also ICTUR. Daniel Blackburn, • ICTUR’s plan to make greater from regions around the world: urge for the release of trade union Director of ICTUR described the use of the UN’s Universal leaders from detention. Ahmadi structure and objectives of the Periodic Review Process got Jamshid Ahmadi, Union of thanked ICTUR for its assistance in organisation, and discussed its underway in 2017, and ICTUR Metalworkers and Mechanics of drafting a complaint to the ILO most recent projects and submitted 3 papers, on Japan Iran (UMMI) spoke of the Committee on Freedom of activities: (with Zenroren), on the Republic repressive anti-union situation in Association, and expressed thanks of Korea (with ITUC), and on the country and of dreadful health also to Industriall for accepting the • ICTUR has revised its affiliation Guatemala. and safety conditions that have UMMI as an affiliate. The presence model and is now charging • Research, consultancies and seen many injuries in recent years, of large TNCs in the car graded affiliation fees, which, it commissioned work remained the most severe of which included manufacturing industry might be a was reported, has been helpful important, with ICTUR Director a factory fire and an explosion in a route to push for reform, said Ahmadi, urging Industriall to find ways of applying pressure on these TNCs to promote workplace and union rights in Iran.

John Odah, Executive Secretary of the Organisation of Trade Unions in West Africa (OTUWA) shared a regional perspective, highlighting the multiple challenges faced by workers and unions across West Africa. A heightened situation of risk from terrorist groups has created numerous political and security concerns, in particular in Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon, and the instability in Libya has added to these pressures. Issues of poverty continue to be a major concern, particularly in countries affected by the Ebola crisis. The exercise of

24 | International Union Rights | 24/2 ICTUR IN ACTION | ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCIL REPORT 2017 trade union rights is quite and loses may have to pay the understandably difficult in these employer’s legal costs, which may circumstances. John raised be substantial. This is unusual in a particular issues in Liberia, where labour court and is likely to be resistance to the privatisation of very dissuasive for workers. The education had resulted in trade law has been approved, but it union leaders being dismissed. needs to be studied – it might Liberia has also adopted a Decent influence other countries in Latin Work Law, which however denies America. workers in the public and maritime sectors their freedom of Keisuke Fuse, Zenroren, Japan association rights. The region also began by thanking ICTUR for struggles with union helping to draft a submission to fragmentation. the UN Universal Periodic Review process concerning denial of trade Ericson Crivelli, lawyer, Crivelli union rights for firefighters and Advogados Associados, Brazil prison officers, trade union rights expressed concern that law issues in the public sector, and the reforms recently rushed though by situation of migrant workers. the right-wing Temer Japan has a problem with long administration would have a working hours – the world’s negative impact for workers. The longest – and labour law reform reforms, Crivelli observed, has not been sufficient, permitting has announced a plan to ratify ILO southern Africa were repressed represented the greatest change overtime of 100 hours per month. Conventions 87 and 98. But the after exercising the right to strike. to labour law in Brazil since 1943, The government is bypassing Secretary General of KCTU is still Cambodia, Owens said, was in a when the current position was tripartite consultations – despite in jail, and despite the recent race to the bottom to try to have established in the corporatist-era. having ratified ILO Convention 144 comments of the UN Working lower costs and standards than The new law is essentially a and is excluding Zenroren from Group on Arbitrary Detention the Bangladesh, while in the US the liberalising measure and will allow talks and failing to consult Supreme Court upheld his union-busting industry is said to local collective bargaining to properly with the Rengo trade conviction. Teachers and civil be worth US$4 billion. undercut protections in national union centre. A new anti- servants unions remain banned – labour law. To understand the conspiracy bill will impinge on which was reported in the ICTUR / The meeting concluded with problem here it is necessary, trade union freedoms and is of ITUC submission to the UN UPR discussion of themes raised Crivelli explained, to be aware that concern to many activists involved process – and migrant workers during the session, including Brazil’s corporatist industrial in political work who fear their continue to face problems, even strategies for promoting trade framework organised unions activities will be targeted. after their union was legalised. union rights in Iran using relations ‘outside of the workplace’, and did Zenroren remains concerned by Industry bargaining is not possible with transnational corporations not establish a system of the attempts to amend the ‘peace because chaebol owners refuse to under Global Framework workplace reps to deal with local clause’ in Japan’s Constitution participate, forcing unions into Agreements or even using the problems. Collective bargaining (Article 9). And the media lack company bargaining models. OECD Guidelines; whether will be pushed down to the local confidence to report critically, Zimbabwe should adopt a level and, while workers Japan’s industrial relations model Declan Owens, ITUC Legal Japanese-style company representatives will be created, in part explains this: journalists Department reported that his organising / bargaining model the country does not have a strong tend to work for, and have a focus over recent months has (answered emphatically - No!); tradition of local bargaining or strong loyalty to, a large media been the preparation of the ITUC’s whether ICTUR could ‘name and activism, or the confidence and corporation, their unions also annual survey of workers’ rights shame’ companies (not easy for experience that accompanies that, organise on a company basis. The (now titled ‘Global Rights Index’), an NGO short of resources and and there are concerns for the lack of industry bargaining is a ranking 139 countries in terms of based in one of the world’s most influence employers may have in problem, which Japan needs to respect for workers’ and trade plaintiff-friendly libel law regimes); elections. Overall this move is change. union rights. In 2017 the report the extraordinary length taken for seen as likely to undermine trade had listed the following as the some companies to settle cases, union power and to fragment and Mikyung Ryu, Korean worst for workers rights: even despite court judgements liberalise bargaining, The reforms Confederation of Trade Unions Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, against them; the problem of anti- also reduce the power of the reported dramatic changes in the Guatemala, Qatar, Turkey, the union violence in the Philippines; labour courts – they will lose their political level – the president was United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, and the question of engagement freedom to interpret the law, and impeached and arrested and is the Philippines and South Korea. with unions felt to be to use analogy, or to apply now in jail, as is the chaebol [large Owens noted that ITUC had ‘most unrepresentative and / or international standards. This is family-run corporation with links to documented violations’ from the government-controlled. ICTUR also further exacerbated by a change the state] owner with whom the Middle East and North Africa, discussed the potential for further to the structuring of legal costs president’s misconduct was where problems included violence, cooperative participation in the awards in the labour courts, such associated. The new Government arbitrary arrest, and detentions UN’s UPR process with a number that a worker who brings a case has taken some positive steps and and that unions in Zimbabwe and of those present.

24/2 | International Union Rights | 25 WORLDWIDE

Bangladesh Canada thirty of whom were seriously injured. The government of Bangladesh has After decades of campaigning by trade After charges of human trafficking and agreed in principle to allow workers of unions, Canada has become the 165th attempted murder were dropped, export processing zone (EPZ) factories country to ratify ILO Convention 98 on Greek courts convicted the guard and to form trade unions, following a the Right to Organise and Collective one of the employers of grievous bodily Cabinet meeting on 23 April. The Bargaining. The announcement in May harm and unlawful use of firearms - announcement came after increased was welcomed by the Canadian but their sentences were commuted to pressure from the EU Commission, Labour Congress CLC President a fine. They were ordered to pay the which in March called for the Hassan Yussuff, who said the victims just €43 each. Awarding government to permit workers in EPZs ratification was ‘long-overdue’ and €588,000 in compensation to the to join unions or risk being withdrawn that ‘Canada is finally recognising the workers, the European Court of Human from the Generalised System of crucial role that strong unions and Rights found that the workers had Preferences (GSP), under which collective bargaining rights play in been subjected to forced labour in wide Bangladesh enjoys duty-free market reducing inequality and building violation of the European Convention access to the EU countries (the EU stronger, fair and inclusive economies’. on Human Rights (Art. 4) and that they accounts for over 60 percent of the did not receive effective protection country’s garment exports). Currently, Colombia from the Greek State. workers at EPZs are not covered by the Three NGOs have petitioned the Office Labour Act, but by the EPZ Act, under of the Prosecutor of the International India which they may only join ‘Workers’ Criminal Court (ICC) to expand its In June the world’s second most- Welfare Associations’, but not unions. preliminary examination of Colombia to populous country made a include corporate officials of Chiquita commitment to addressing child Brazil Brands International. The NGOs – labour by ratifying both Convention The first general strike in over twenty Fédération Internationale des Ligues 138 on the Minimum Age for

world years took place in Brazil on 28 April. des Droits de l’Homme (FIDH), the Admission to Employment and Work, Millions of trade unionists and International Human Rights Clinic of and Convention 182 on the Worst demonstrators took to the streets to Harvard Law School, and the Colectivo Forms of Child Labour. The move protest President Michel Temer’s de Abogados José Alvear Restrepo follows the enactment last year of the austerity drive, which plans to weaken (CAJAR) – allege that corporate Child Labour (Prohibition and labour protections and cut pensions. officials were involved in making Prevention) Amendment Act, 2016, The strike hit all 26 states and the payments to the Autodefensas Unidas which banned employment of children Federal District and workers from all de Colombia (AUC) - a paramilitary below 14 years of age in all sectors – including the auto and oil group. The communication to the ICC – occupations and processes, and industry, and public sector – took part. submitted in May 2017 – alleges that prohibited the employment of children ‘Chiquita’s payments to the AUC aged 14-18 years in hazardous Cambodia occurred against a backdrop of occupations. Labour Minister Bandaru A draft Minimum Wage Law threatens historical violence against labor Dattatreya described the move as ‘a to make breaches of numerous organisers in Colombia, particularly historic moment for India’ and a ‘giant provisions punishable as criminal violence against unions in the banana- step’ to a world without child labour. offences. The law accords the Royal growing regions’, and contains ILO Director-General Guy Ryder noted Government the right to ultimately testimonies from former AUC leaders that ‘Convention 182 will cover more determine the minimum wage, and claiming that the absence of strike than 99 percent of the world’s children grants the Minister in Charge of activity on banana plantations was due and the coverage of Convention 138 Labour wide discretion over varying it. to paramilitary efforts. Links to the full will leap from approximately 60 It further makes it an offence to submission – as well as Chiquita’s percent to almost 80 percent’. commit an ‘illegal act’ that causes response to the allegations – can be ‘obstruction or pressure’ on the found on the website of the Business ITUC Global Rights minimum wage discussions; to ‘incite and Human Rights Resource Centre: Index or provoke’ any objection to https://business-humanrights.org The ITUC have published the findings Regulations on the determination of of its annual survey on trade union the minimum wage; to consult any Greece rights. The Global Rights Index 2017 alternative sources other than those On 30 March, the European Court of continues its practice of ranking 139 stipulated by the law for reference in Human Rights ruled in favour of forty- countries against a complex web of minimum wage discussions; and for two migrant workers from Bangladesh, indicators to produce a list of the top any person not on the National who were shot at by an armed guard ten ‘worst’ countries. The report claims Minimum Wage Council to even on a strawberry plantation in that over 75 percent of countries deny conduct research on the minimum Manolada, Greece. The workers - some or all workers their right to strike, wage. A legal analysis of the law unpaid for months and living in and that the same proportion deny produced by the Cambodian Center for makeshift shacks without water or some or all workers collective Human Rights, the ITUC and the toilets – went on strike in April 2013 to bargaining. The countries identified as Solidarity Center, is available at: demand their pay. An armed guard the worst for workers’ rights in 2017 www.cchrcambodia.org. opened fire on the protesting workers, are Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt,

26 | International Union Rights | 24/2 WORLDWIDE

Guatemala, Qatar, Turkey, the United set up, as the government sponsored ITUC’s regional association La Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, the the seizure of independent unions and Confederación Sindical de Trabajadores Philippines and South Korea. The report union activists were threatened. y Trabajadoras de las Americas (CSA) also includes a breakdown of the 11 Criminal prosecutions were trumped had a ‘lack of independence’ from the countries in which ITUC reported that up against trade union leaders for governments of Venezuela, Brazil, trade unionists were murdered during defending union rights, unions were Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Chile and the past year, these being: Bangladesh, denied their rightful place on tripartite Argentina. Gómez was previously a Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, platforms, and their leaders were leader of the Christian-aligned trade Italy, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, slandered and demonised’. To access union centre for the region, prior to the Venezuela and Mauritania. The full the full report, visit the FESTU website: founding of the ITUC. report is available on the ITUC website: www.festu.org www.ituc-csi.org. Turkey South Korea Birleşik Metal İş, with the support of Labour 20 Following the landmark conviction of Centre for Research on Multinational Ahead of the G20 Summit in Hamburg the chairman of Yoosung Enterprise on Corporations (SOMO), filed a complaint in July, the L20 group met at a charges of union-busting in February to the independent Project Complaint Dialogue Forum in Berlin in May to 2017, prosecutors in South Korea have Mechanism of the European Bank for formulate their joint positions and indicted four Hyundai Motor executives Reconstruction and Development demands. The L20 unites trade unions for actions constituting ‘conspiracy’ to (EBRD), in September 2015, following from the G20 countries with the Global engage in unjust labour actions with which an independent investigation Unions, and is convened by the ITUC its subcontractor Yoosung. The report has been published. The April and Trade Union Advisory Committee charges relate to a 2011 campaign to 2017 report cites the Bank’s failure to (TUAC) to the OECD. The G20 accounts undermine the Yoosung Enterprise ensure protection of core labour for 80 percent of worldwide trade. The chapter of the Korean Metal Workers’ standards in its loan to Türk Traktör – a L20 statement submitted to the G20 Union (KMWU). Sentencing Yoosung Turkish manufacturer of tractors and Labour Ministers included calls for chairman Yu Si-yeong to one and half agricultural machinery. The EBRD action on ensuring fairer globalisation years, the Cheonan branch of the granted Türk Traktör a loan of EUR 30 and working conditions in global Daejeon District Court detailed how million in March 2013 and a further supply chains, the challenges of the Yoosung – faced with a KMWU-led EUR 20 million in May 2014. In 2015, future of work, gender, integration of strike action – had established a Türk Traktör dismissed twenty workers migrant workers and youth company union on the advice of a law and workers’ representatives for employment. ITUC General Secretary firm, and discriminated against KMWU participating a nationwide strike Sharan Burrow said ‘We would like to members. involving more than 30,000 metal see every country mandate the UN In the new May 24 indictment, the workers. Dismissals also occurred at Guiding Principles on Business and Cheonan branch of the Daejeon other EBRD clients where workers Human Rights for workers in global District Prosecutors’ Office has listed participated in the 2015 strikes. supply chains, with due diligence and Hyundai Motor as a ‘co-offender’ Download the full report at: grievance procedures that enable alongside Yoosung on charges of www.somo.nl/erdb-fails-respect- remedy against exploitation for the violating the Trade Union and Labor turkish-labor-rights millions of workers on whom Relations Adjustment Act. Hyundai is multinationals rely on for their accused of encouraging Yoosung Vietnam products and services’. The full Enterprises’s actions against the The Vietnamese government agreed in statement can be accessed here: KMWU in 2011, included by setting negotiations for the Trans-Pacific www.ituc-csi.org/l20-statement-to targets for membership in the Partnership (TPP) to amend legislation -the-g20-labour company-controlled union. and allow for unions independent of the Vietnam General Confederation of Somalia South America Labour (VGCL) to be registered. A draft The Federation of Somali Trade Unions A new regional confederation has been Labour Code has now been announced

(FESTU) has published a full report launched for South America: la and is expected to come into effect in wide listing numerous abuses of trade union Alternativa Democrática Sindical de las 2018. In the draft, unions independent rights in Somalia in 2016. According to Américas (ADS). The ADS held its of the VGCL are permitted, but while the report, ‘outspoken trade union founding congress in Bogotá in April, some will interpret this as a leaders and worker activists have been which was attended by about 400 progressive measure, other reforms subjected to statements or actions that delegates of trade union centers from are more clearly regressive, including dehumanise and demoralise them, countries in South America and the a tripling of the maximum overtime including smear campaigns, political Caribbean. Among the other founding hours in a year to 600, greater persecution, vilification and members, and understood to be the flexibility of work contracts, and the castigation… Union meetings were driving force behind the new removal of job security provisions raided and stopped, union members organisation is the Colombian during pregnancy and were killed and wounded, and trade Confederación General del Trabajo, CGT maternity leave. unions were deregistered in order to and its leader Julio Roberto Gómez. world make them illegal. Fake unions were ADS’s founders have asserted that the

24/2 | International Union Rights | 27 FOCUS | UNITED STATES

(continued from Page 12...) (continued from Page 19...)

1 H. K. Porter Co., Inc. v. NLRB, 397 U.S. 99 (1970) 3 Editorial, Dallas Morning News, 9/1/1941. (In possession of 2 Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB, 535 U.S. 137 copy) (2002) 4 Ray Stannard Baker, ‘The Right to Work,’ McClure’s, Jan. 3 NLRB v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co., 304 U.S. 333 (1938) 1903 4 American Ship Building Co. v. NLRB, 380 U.S. 300 (1965) 5 LA Times, Jan. 24, 1930, ‘Coffin Heads M. And M. Again.’ 5 NLRB v. Brown, 380 U.S. 278 (1965) 61966 speech of Ruggles in pamphlet, The Genesis of Right to 6 Harter Equipment, 280 NLRB 597 (1986) Work 7All data from Michael H. LeRoy, Lockouts Involving 7Stetson Kennedy, ‘Southern Exposure’, (University of Alabama Replacement Workers: An Empirical Public Policy Analysis and Press: 1991) p. 251. Proposal to Balance Economic Weapons Under the NLRA, 74 8 Ibid. at 84. Wash. U. L. Q. 981 (1996). 9 127 F.2d 53 (6th Cir. 1942). 10 65 S.Ct. 235 (Dec. 18, 1944). 11 65 S.Ct. 226 (Dec. 18, 1944). 12 Sophia Lee, The Workplace Constitution From the New Deal to (continued from Page 13...) the New Right (Cambridge University Press: 2014), p. 31. 13 132 S.Ct. 2277 (2012). engages in union busting is only a small piece of the 14 134 S.Ct. 2618 (2014). puzzle. "e bigger issue is that the company, along with many others, knowingly bene#ts from these e!orts. "e Special Rapporteur #nds this complicity in the violation of workers’ right to freedom of association unconscionable’.

1 http://www.industriall-union.org/trade-unions-file-oecd-case -against-renault-nissan-alliance-in-three-countries

(continued from Page 21...) (non-white and le"ist) was to be truly a high-risk activist in this historical period. Each act of violence, each fatality weighed into Stands for society’s short-term collective memory: e$ecting the calculations of future combatants and changes to the overarching structure of state-capital-labour Solidarity relations within which they were produced. Failure to recognise the frequency and lethality of the violence which so characterised this formative era of www.uniglobalunion.org American industrial relations leaves our understanding of the American labour movement Over 60 million jobs have been lost since the beginning of woefully underdeveloped. the financial crisis in 2008. With the addition of new labour market entrants over the next five years, 280 million more For more detailed discussion, see the following: jobs need to be created by 2019. Half the world’s workforce • Lipold, Paul F. & Larry W. Isaac. 2009. ‘Striking are employed in precarious work and one and three jobs pay Deaths’: Lethal Contestation and the ‘Exceptional’ less than $1.25 per day. To just maintain the status quo Character of the American Labor Movement, 1.8 billion jobs must be created by 2030. 1870-1970’, International Review of Social History We are seeing levels of inequality in income distribution 54 (2): 167-205 back to the scale of the 1920s. We are living through a • Isaac, Larry W. & Paul F. Lipold. 2012. ‘Toward boom period but only for the one percent. Bridging Analytics and Dialectics: Nonergodic Processes and Turning Points in Dynamic Models There is a word missing in the world of tomorrow debate – of Social Change with Illustrations from Labor ‘solidarity’. UNI Global Union and its 20 million members Movement History’, Current Perspectives in Social stands for solidarity in action. "eory 30: 3-33. • Lipold, Paul F. 2014. ‘Striking Deaths’ at their Join with us: www.uniglobalunion.org Roots: Assaying the Social Determinants of Extreme Labor-Management Violence in U.S UNI global union, 8-10 Av. Reverdil, Labor History, 1877-1947’, Social Science History 1260 NYON, Switzerland 38 (Winter): 541-575. 28 | International Union Rights | 24/2 Education International

Promoting quality education for all and defending human and trade union rights in our unions, in our schools and in our societies

EI is the global union federation representing 30 million teachers and education workers in 171 countries and territories around the world. To learn more, please visit: www.ei-ie.org

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PSI works with our members and allies to campaign for social and economic justice, and efficient, accessible public services around the world. We believe these services play a vital role in supporting families, creating healthy communities, and building strong, equitable democracies.

Our priorities include global campaigns for water, Building global solidarity energy and health services. PSI promotes gender equality, workers’ rights, trade union capacity- International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, building, equity and diversity. PSI is Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ also active in trade and development debates. Associations 8 Rampe du Pont-Rouge, CH-1213, Petit-Lancy, Switzerland PSI welcomes the opportunity to work co-operatively Tel: + 41 22 793 22 33 Fax: + 41 22 793 22 38 Email: [email protected] with those who share these concerns. General Secretary: Ron Oswald President: Hans-Olof Nilsson Visit our website www.world-psi.org

24/2 | International Union Rights | Also in this issue ● SAFTU: a New South African Trade Union Centre ● ICTUR Administrative Council report

● ICTUR web site: www.ictur.org

Cover: Workers from the Alameda County Industries recycling plant, dramatising the strike they organised against their firings, during a training for workers in how to resist workplace immigration enforcement © David Bacon, dbacon.igc.org