With the nation’s labor unions divided and shrinking, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. has organized 100 demonstrations nationwide to assert that the right of American workers to form unions is being systematically violated.
Eleven Nobel Peace Prize winners, including the Dalai Lama and Lech Walesa, are backing the protest against violations of the right to unionize in the United States and other nations.
“The right to come together in a union is a fundamental freedom that has been eroded beyond recognition,” said John J. Sweeney, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s president. “Companies game the system – they’ll do anything to prevent workers from organizing – without a penalty.”
The labor federation has run full-page advertisements in which the Peace Prize winners, including Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, protested infringements of the right to form independent trade unions in Burma and China. Then the Nobel laureates added, “Even the wealthiest nation in the world, the United States of America, fails to protect workers’ rights to form unions and bargain collectively.” Read this New York Times article here.
