World’s Workers Standing with U.S. Public Employees

by James Parks, Mar 14, 2011

The freedom to bargain for a better life through a union is recognized as a basic human right around the world. With politicians in the United States trying to take away that basic freedom from public employees, working people around the globe are responding with strong expressions of solidarity.
Several major international workers’ organizations and labor federations in more than 20 countries have spoken out  against the abuse of power and assault on U.S. workers.

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), which represents 176 million workers in 301 federations in 151 countries, is standing behind U.S. workers. Sharan Burrow, ITUC’s general secretary, said:

Violating these fundamental democratic rights in other countries such as China, Egypt, Guinea or Mexico is rightly condemned by the US, so what are people to make of such abuse of power in the U.S. itself? The rights to organize and bargain collectively for fair wages and conditions are cornerstones of any democracy, and removing these rights means democracy itself is under attack.

The Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC)  to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)  issued a statement saying it stands in solidarity with the Wisconsin workers and all those in other states facing legislation to curtail workers’ rights and eliminate collective bargaining rights for public sector unions.

The legislation is being pitched as a necessary measure to combat budget deficits in many states, but is in reality an attack on workers rights, which in effect undermines the ILO (International Labor Organization) Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work—a set of core labor standards,  which establish fundamental principles that protect basic human rights in the workforce. 

Just last week, the members of the German telecommunications union, ver.di, rallied in Berlin to support bargaining rights for workers in the United States.
U.S. workers also are receiving support from all corners of the world, from Japan to Kenya to Mexico and Egypt.
In a particularly poignant letter, the Iraqi Federation Oil Unions, from a nation that knows something about dictatorships, declared:

We express our comprehensive solidarity with our brothers in the United States, and strongly condemn the attitude of Scott Walker, which actually presents an aggressive attack [in the manner of a dictator].

You can read these expressions and more of support from around the world on the AFL-CIO’s States of Denial website here.