Human Rights Watch examines both the failure of the U.S. government to enforce U.S. law, and the failure of U.S. law to meet international standards. Governments have a responsibility under international law to provide effective recourse and remedies for workers whose rights have been violated by employers. The U.S. government fails to meet that obligation. Many workers in the U.S. have rights to organize and bargain under the National Labor Relations Act. 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.
Penalties are virtually non-existent.
If the National Labor Relations Board decides a worker was fired illegally because of union organizing, the guilty employer only has to post a written notice promising not to repeat the illegal conduct and give the victim back pay. Valenzuela and his co-workers at Acme Die Casting organized into UE and faced years of legal delays in efforts to achieve a first contract. Acme is one of two UE examples among the case studies in Unfair Advantage . Geographic diversity matches the range of sectors. The cases studied here offer a cross-section of workers attempts to form and join trade unions, to bargain collectively, and to strike.