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Today, May 1, is International Workers Day. Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states the following:(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.Yet, according to the human rights group Amnesty International, "workers around the world are being threatened, harassed, even killed for standing up for their basic rights. According to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, at least 100 trade unionists are killed every year for trying to promote better pay and working conditions for employees. Many states have signed international laws safeguarding the right of trade unionists to act freely, yet some states are consistently failing to uphold their responsibilities under these laws." >> Read about a couple of these cases from Cambodia and Colombia. It's greed-induced murder. And it's not just happening in the developing world. While worker repression is usually not quite so violent here in the U.S., corporations here have also been cracking down on unions, using intimidation and other ethically questionable tactics. >> Read more about the decline in U.S. labor unions, from the Workplace Fairness organization. It is the workers who perform the necessary tasks that keep our economy running and make our societies great -- not the fat-cat overpaid CEOs. And it is the workers -- not the CEOs -- who truly deserve more respect and greater job security. Without the workers, where would we be? -----
