Many workers who try to form and join trade unions to bargain with their employers are spied on, harassed, pressured, threatened, suspended, fired, deported, or otherwise victimized in reprisal for their exercise of the right to freedom of association. But international human rights law makes governments responsible for protecting vulnerable persons and groups from patterns of abuse by private actors. In the United States, labor law enforcement efforts often fail to deter unlawful conduct. The NLRA defends the rights of workers to form, join, or assist in organizing a union at one's place of employment, to engage in activities that seek to modify wages or working conditions, or to refuse to do any or all of these things. It prohibits employers from unduly interfering in organizing activity, such as threatening to fire or actually firing employees because they are engaged in organizing, and it also protects employees against union pressure on and retaliations against workers who do not participate in or who criticize union activities.
Freedom of association is the first such right cited in calls for labor rights in trade agreements.
But to give effective leadership to this cause that is not undercut by hypocrisy, the United States must confront and begin to solve its own failings when it comes to workers' rights. In mid-January the NLRB announced it has adopted a new policy to process in a more timely way cases pending on appeal before the board. The NLRB also said it has substantially reduced the number of old unfair labor practice and union representation cases pending on appeal by issuing decisions in 95 percent of the 424 oldest cases targeted in 1999 and 2000. During that same period, it reduced its overall inventory of pending cases by about 16 percent.