The application of antitrust laws to block organizing effortsby workers deemed independent contractors is another obstacle to freedom of association for affected workers, but it is not taken up here in detail. Both actions implicate workers' freedom of association, but the latter is more severely restricted in U.S. law, and more options are available to workers seeking to form a union. The denial to state and local public employees in many states of the right to bargain collectively and the right to strike is referred to in discussions of workers excluded from the protection of U.S. labor laws, but without a full analysis or case studies. Brief mention is also made of the denial to federal employees of the right to bargain over economic terms and conditions of employment or to strike, without further treatment. Problems of agricultural workers, domestic household workers and other excluded categories are treated at greater length in this report.
Case studies fall into two broad categories.
One involves cases where U.S. law comports with international standards regarding freedom of association, but government enforcement action is not sufficient to protect workers' exercise of their rights in the face of violations by employers. In some cases studied here, governmental power itself interfered with workers' freedom of association. The second category involves cases where U.S. law conflicts with international labor rights standards and thus places legal obstacles in the way of workers seeking to exercise rights to free association. In practice, distinctions among violations by employers, lack of effective enforcement by government, and legal obstacles cannot always be neatly made, but the general structure of the report approaches the issues with these distinctions in mind. Human Rights Watch's recommendations follow similar lines, suggesting ways to make enforcement of workers' rights more effective under existing U.S. law and proposing changes to U.S. law where it fails to protect workers' freedom of association.