Unfair Advantage

by Compa, Lance

• ISBN13: 9780801489648
• ISBN10: 0801489644
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-09-30
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

We are not shy about reporting human rights abuses around the globe. We are much more reluctant to recognize them at home. This book exposes the violations of human rights witnessed daily in workplaces across our country. Based on detailed case studies in a variety of sectors, it reveals an "unfair advantage" in U.S. law and practice that allows employers to fire or otherwise punish thousands of workers as they seek to exercise their rights of association and to exclude millions more from laws that protect their rights to bargain and to organize. Unfair Advantage approaches workers' use of organizing, collective bargaining, and strikes as an exercise of basic rights where workers are autonomous actors, not objects of unions' or employers' institutional interests. Both historical experience and a review of current conditions around the world indicate that strong, independent, democratic trade unions are vital for societies where human rights are respected. In Lance Compa's view, human rights cannot flourish where workers' rights are not enforced. While researching workers' exercise of these rights in different industries, occupations, and regions of the United States, Human Rights Watch found that freedom of association is under severe, often buckling pressure when workers in the United States try to exercise it. Cornell University Press is making this valuable report, originally published in August 2000, available again as a paperback with a new introduction and conclusion that bring the story up-to-date.

Author Biography

Lance Compa is a Senior Lecturer at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS	ix
INTRODUCTION, 2004	xi
NOTE ON METHODOLOGY	1	(5)
I. SUMMARY	6	(11)
Policy and Reality	9	(1)
Workers' Voices	10	(3)
International Human Rights and Workers	13	(2)
International Labor Rights Norms	15	(2)
II. FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS	17	(23)
General	17	(16)
Immigrant Workers	33	(3)
Agricultural Workers	36	(4)
H-2A Workers	38	(2)
III. WORKERS' FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION UNDER INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW	40	(11)
The International Background	40	(1)
International Human Rights Instruments	41	(2)
Regional Instruments	43	(1)
ILO Conventions and OECD Guidelines	44	(2)
U.S. Commitments in the Multilateral Setting	46	(2)
U.S. Trade Laws	48	(2)
The North American Free Trade Agreement	50	(1)
IV. FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION UNDER U.S. LABOR LAW	51	(20)
The U.S. Legal Framework for Workers' Freedom of Association	51	(4)
How Workers Form and Join Trade Unions in the United States	55	(5)
How the National Labor Relations Board Works	60	(11)
V. CASE STUDIES OF VIOLATIONS OF WORKERS' FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION	71	(100)
Context: The Increase in Workers' Rights Violations under U.S. Law	71	(4)
Service Sector Workers	75	(19)
South Florida Nursing Homes	75	(13)
San Francisco, California Hotels	88	(6)
Food Processing Workers	94	(19)
North Carolina Pork Processing	94	(10)
Detroit, Michigan Snack Foods	104	(9)
Manufacturing Workers	113	(22)
Baltimore, Maryland Packaging Industry	113	(5)
Northbrook, Illinois Telecommunications Castings	118	(5)
New Orleans, Louisiana Shipbuilding	123	(7)
New York City Apparel Shops	130	(5)
Migrant Agricultural Workers	135	(25)
Washington State Apple Industry	139	(7)
North Carolina Farmworkers and the H-2A Program	146	(14)
Contingent Workers	160	(11)
High-Tech Computer Programmers	163	(5)
Express Package Delivery Workers	168	(3)
VI. LEGAL OBSTACLES TO U.S. WORKERS' EXERCISE OF FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION	171	(43)
Defenseless Workers: Exclusions in U.S. Labor Law	171	(19)
Agricultural Workers	173	(2)
Domestic Workers	175	(6)
Independent Contractors	181	(3)
Supervisors	184	(2)
Managers	186	(1)
Other Exclusions	186	(1)
Public Employees	187	(3)
Colorado Steelworkers, the Right to Strike and Permanent Replacements in U.S. Labor Law	190	(18)
Worker Solidarity and Secondary Boycotts	208	(6)
CONCLUSION, 2004	214