On Int’l Human Rights Day
Workers demand collective bargaining, end to racism
By
Dante Strobino
Published Dec 20, 2007 12:44 AM
On Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day, public-sector workers in North
Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia—in a common struggle to deepen the
protections under state law for collective-bargaining rights, and all organized
by the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America—held
simultaneous news conferences announcing the most recent step in the
International Worker Justice Campaign.
UE organizer
Ashaki Binta at news conference.
Photo: UE
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They are requesting that the Inter-American Council on Human Rights, a body
chartered under the Organization of American States, investigate why workers
are denied the fundamental human rights to organize and collectively bargain
labor contracts with their employers.
The workers in these three states all suffer from different conditions and laws
but they all share the fact that none of these states protects their right to
collectively bargain. North Carolina, the state with the worst laws and
conditions, where public-employee collective bargaining is actually illegal,
was the prime focus of this action.
For several years, UE along with Black Workers for Justice and other community
and labor organizations have been building a grassroots movement to demand
repeal of General Statute 95-98, the North Carolina law prohibiting collective
bargaining for public workers.
North Carolina and Virginia are the only states in the country where collective
bargaining for public workers is prohibited by law.
The UE’s “request to the OAS is the third international legal
initiative undertaken by our union in the fight to win collective bargaining
rights for all public employees. Cases have also been brought before the human
rights agency of the United Nations and, through the efforts of Mexico’s
FAT, [Authentic Workers' Front] under the side agreements to the North
American Free Trade Agreement,” states the UE website.
The OAS has historically been a tool by the U.S. to diplomatically undermine
the economies in Latin America—for example, the anti-worker
NAFTA—but underscoring the 1848 prognosis of Karl Marx and Frederick
Engels that capitalism creates its own gravediggers, poverty and repression are
igniting pro-worker resistance throughout the region.
Connecting workers’ rights with fighting racism
In the last three years, this campaign has organized hearings in several cities
across North Carolina to speak out against work conditions. A highlight of that
campaign was in November 2005 when members of the United Nations International
Labor Organization from several countries participated in a hearing where
workers from all over the state testified about their working conditions and
the need for collective bargaining.
Then, in September 2006, city workers in Raleigh were being forced to work
overtime without pay, amidst other grievances, and waged a militant two-day
walk out. It was not until the workers built their union and expanded their
demands that they found any justice. This past November, they finally won a
settlement from the city, awarding them back overtime pay.
Last February, the ILO released a 90-page report with its findings, indicting
North Carolina for violating international law. On Feb. 10 more than 3,000
people, mostly African American, met and marched in the streets in the
NAACP’s “Historic Thousands on Jones Street People’s
Assembly” to demand collective bargaining for state workers along with a
slate of 13 other demands for the North Carolina Legislature.
Due to the workers’ mobilizations and power, this past legislative
session saw unexpected progress on a bill created by the movement that would
have eliminated the ban on collective bargaining.
The bill passed through one state house judiciary committee and is now sitting
in the state appropriations committee. It has many supporters in the state
legislature.
Given that most of the public-sector workers in North Carolina and Virginia are
Black, Latin@ and women, this struggle for collective bargaining is an
obviously monumental struggle against institutional racism and sexism. In fact,
UE Local 150, the North Carolina Public Sector Workers Union, has always had
the plight of oppressed workers foremost on its mind in fashioning an approach
to this struggle.
Most recently, since the national upsurge in the anti-racist movement following
the Jena 6 case in Louisiana, just as nooses were hung across the country meant
to intimidate Black people, there were several nooses found hanging in work
places in North Carolina.
A Nov. 25 New York Times article, “The Geography of Hate,” reported
that 50 to 60 nooses have been found, with many others not reported.
This is not a struggle unfamiliar to UE Local 150. Back in 2004, during the
IWJC public hearing in Rocky Mount, workers testified about how in the spring
of 2004 a dummy was hung at a city work site, and linked this with other
incidents of racism at that time.
In 2005, the UE supported several Black Department of Transportation workers,
called the “DOT 7,” who filed a lawsuit against the state after a
noose was left hanging for a month over their work bench.
Most recently, since the Sept. 20 Jena march of tens of thousands, there have
been nooses found at state work places at Eastern Carolina University and North
Carolina State University, and two were found in a bucket with red paint,
symbolizing blood, at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. UE-organized
workers at all three of these universities have been fighting back.
Most recently, they held a news conference and rally at UNC-Charlotte to
denounce the nooses. Statewide, UE Local 150 has also recently been
implementing anti-racist union stewards’ trainings for prompt, on-the-job
organized resistance to racism.
Strobino is a member of the youth group Fight Imperialism-Stand Together
(FIST) in Raleigh, N.C., and is also an organizer with UE in North Carolina,
Virginia and West Virginia.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
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