Labored Relations: Corporate Citizenship, Labor Unions, and Freedom of Association

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cedric E. Dawkins
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Business Ethics ◽  
Labor Unions ◽  
Labor Relations ◽  
Corporate Citizenship ◽  
Labor Rights ◽  
Freedom Of Association ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Way

ABSTRACT:Globalization has brought increased attention to the notion that labor rights such as freedom of association—the right of workers to organize a union—are fundamental human rights. However, the vigorous opposition to freedom of association by US firms is largely ignored in the business ethics literature and exacerbated by compensatory corporate citizenship rating mechanisms that tend to mask labor rights deficiencies. I argue that because freedom of association is a hypernorm, instrumental to fully realizing basic human rights, labor rights and human rights are largely inseparable. Thus, respect for labor rights is a non-substitutable requisite of corporate citizenship. I conclude by providing examples of corporate labor relations strategies that respect freedom of association and business firms that are leading the way.

scholarly journals The Rights of Workers, Migrant Workers and Trade Unions in the Light of the European Convention on Human Rights

2021 ◽  
pp. 224-246
Author(s):  
Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Case Law ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Labor Rights ◽  
Freedom Of Association ◽  
Labor Legislation ◽  
European Court ◽  
The Right

The European Court of Human Rights (the Court, the ECHR) has made a significantcontribution to the protection of social rights in general and labor rights in particular. The articlefocuses on four specific areas that demonstrate the richness of case-law in this area. First of all, theauthor focuses on individual issues related to the general rights of workers, drawing attention to issuesof unfair dismissal, the right to respect for private and family life, freedom of religion and freedomof expression. Secondly, the author dwells on the protection of the rights of migrant workers underthe Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Third, the articleexamines trade union rights in the light of freedom of association. Finally, reflecting the economiclandscape of the past decade, case-law is provided to demonstrate how austerity measures can affecthuman rights and how the Court has responded to this problematic issue.Social rights, including labor rights, have received many advantages from the fact that they wereconsidered in the case-law of the Court, since its practice clarified the boundaries and limited thestate’s unlimited discretion in the management of these rights. At the same time, a certain trend hasformed. If at first the protection of workers’ rights and freedoms sharply increased, which is confirmedby some textbook cases of the ECHR, now it is impossible not to notice a regressive trend that isassociated with labor legislation, expands the discretion of governments and significantly limits theeffectiveness of the Court when considering labor rights. However, this regressive trend should notbe regarded as irreversible. The article highlights how meaningful consideration of soft law principlesallows the Court to take a progressive position that promotes labor rights and how it can continueto help protect workers’ rights.

Mapping the Boundaries of Human Rights at Work

2009 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff Hilgert
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Labor Relations ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Labor Rights ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Legal Doctrine ◽  
International Human ◽  
The Right ◽  
Human Rights Standards

Over the past twenty years, International Labour Standards have been cited increasingly as the authoritative, worldwide body of jurisprudence on workers' rights as human rights. Continuing the debate on what constitutes labor rights, the author contrasts the definition of workers' rights under international human rights standards with U.S. labor history's notion of “pure and simple unionism,” examining the boundaries of rights defined by international standards in a comparative historical context. The standards examined include workers' right to organize; coercive employer speech; access to employer premises; nonmajority representation; the right to strike, picket, and boycott; union security clauses; the scope of bargaining; government enforcement; and the legal doctrine of employer association rights. Aligning U.S. labor relations law with international human rights standards would in part be a social advancement, but significant aspects of the standards advocate pure and simple unionism more than the original National Labor Relations Act, raising questions about how labor movements should use international standards as advocacy tools and public policy goals.

Comparative Views on the Right to Vote in International Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shai Dothan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
National Courts ◽  
European Court ◽  
Right To Vote ◽  
The Right ◽  
Democratic Elections ◽  
The Way

There is a consensus about the existence of an international right to vote in democratic elections. Yet states disagree about the limits of this right when it comes to the case of prisoners’ disenfranchisement. Some states allow all prisoners to vote, some disenfranchise all prisoners, and others allow only some prisoners to vote. This chapter argues that national courts view the international right to vote in three fundamentally different ways: some view it as an inalienable right that cannot be taken away, some view it merely as a privilege that doesn’t belong to the citizens, and others view it as a revocable right that can be taken away under certain conditions. The differences in the way states conceive the right to vote imply that attempts by the European Court of Human Rights to follow the policies of the majority of European states by using the Emerging Consensus doctrine are problematic.

Is There a Right to Free Movement across Borders?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Song
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Free Movement ◽  
Individual Freedom ◽  
Freedom Of Association ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Freedom Of Movement ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Right ◽  
Logical Extension

Chapter 6 examines three rights-based arguments for freedom of movement across borders. Three rights-based arguments have been offered in support of freedom of international movement. The first claims that freedom of movement is a fundamental human right in itself. The second adopts a “cantilever” strategy, arguing that freedom of international movement is a logical extension of existing fundamental rights, including the right of domestic free movement and the right to exit one’s country. The third argument is libertarian: international free movement is necessary to respect individual freedom of association and contract. This chapter shows why these arguments fail to justify a general right to free movement across the globe. What is morally required is not a general right of international free movement but an approach that privileges those whose basic human rights are at stake.

The Inviolability of Diplomatic Agents in the Context of Employment

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Rodgers
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Fair Trial ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
Domestic Servants ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Diplomatic Immunity ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Way

‘Ordinary’ employment contracts—including those of domestic servants—have been deemed to attract diplomatic immunity because they fall within the scope of diplomatic functions. This chapter highlights the potential for conflict between these forms of immunity and the rights of the employees, and reflects on cases in which personal servants of diplomatic agents have challenged both the existence of immunity and the scope of its application. The chapter examines claims that the exercise of diplomatic immunity might violate the right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and the way in which courts have dealt with these issues. The chapter analyses diplomats’ own employment claims and notes that they are usually blocked by the assertion of immunity, but also reflects on more recent developments in which claims had been considered which were incidental to diplomatic employment (eg Nigeria v Ogbonna [2012]).

scholarly journals The prosecutor’s office on the defense human and civil rights and freedoms in the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China

2021 ◽  
pp. 87-92
Author(s):  
T. I. Otcheskaya
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
The State ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
Labor Rights ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
The Right

The article is devoted to topical issues of protection of human and civil rights and freedoms by an important state body — the prosecutor’s offi ce in two states — the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China. The author investigated the issue of the formation of prosecutorial supervision in the European space in the mechanism of statehood on the example of the Russian Federation and in the Asian space on the example of the People’s Republic of China.At the same time, the approaches of the two states to the protection of human rights at the constitutional level, which are regulated by the Constitution of the PRC and the Constitution of the Russian Federation, have been studied. The achievements of the Russian prosecutor’s offi ce in protecting human and civil rights and freedoms, which are the responsibility of the state, including on issues of observance of the labor rights of citizens, the right of citizens to protect life and health, are consecrated.The state program of action in the fi eld of human rights adopted by the State Council of the People’s Republic of China has also been studied in detail. Achievements in the social sphere are shown, which are provided not only by the state, but also by the prosecutor’s offi ce. The approaches of legal science in the two states are consecrated not only in the regulation of human and civil rights and freedoms, but also in their provision.Based on the material studied, the author concluded that it is possible to use the positive experience of Russia and China, mutually in both states, in order to ensure the protection of human and civil rights and freedoms in each of them.

scholarly journals Russian Federation: Opinion of the Venice Commission No.1014/2020 dated on 6 July 2021 on the Compatibility with international human rights standards of a series of Bills introduced to the Russian State Duma between 10 and 23 November 2020, to amend laws affecting “foreign agents”

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 122-154
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Freedom Of Association ◽  
Cumulative Impact ◽  
The Right To Privacy ◽  
Russian State ◽  
Legislative Amendments ◽  
Venice Commission ◽  
The Right ◽  
Human Rights Standards

In the adopted at the 127th plenary session Opinion Venice Commission analyzed the objectives and rationale for the legislative amendments to the laws affecting “foreign agents”; expanding the range of individuals and legal entities that can be designated as “foreign agents”; expansion of administrative requirements and restrictions for “foreign agents”; expansion of sanctions for violation of these requirements and restrictions. The Commission concluded that the adoption of these amendments constitutes a serious violation of fundamental human rights, including freedom of association and expression, the right to privacy, the right to participate in public affairs, and the principle of non-discrimination and expressed especial concern about the cumulative impact of the latest amendments on organizations, individuals, the media and civil society in general.

The Right to Health

2018 ◽  
pp. 231-264
Author(s):  
Sandra Fredman
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Reproductive Health ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Personal Integrity ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Way

Is health a human right? Many would maintain that it is not. On this view health and ill-health are due to natural causes, not to State actions. Others are concerned that health raises too many polycentric problems to be dealt with through justiciable human rights. These contestations have shaped the way in which the right to health is understood. Section II sketches out the health context. Section III considers jurisdictions in which there is no express right to health, but a right has been derived from rights to life, personal integrity, or privacy. Section IV contrasts this approach with jurisdictions with an express right to health. Section V examines the role of the right to equality, while section VI focuses on reproductive health. The final section returns to the challenges of polycentricity and the extent to which a justiciable right can address systemic issues rather than individual rights to medication.

29. Arendt

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justine Lacroix
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Conception ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Political Interpretation ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Way ◽  
The Human Condition

This chapter examines a number of key concepts in Hannah Arendt's work, with particular emphasis on how they have influenced contemporary thought about the meaning of human rights. It begins with a discussion of Arendt's claim that totalitarianism amounts to a destruction of the political domain and a denial of the human condition itself; this in turn had occurred only because human rights had lost all validity. It then considers Arendt's formula of the ‘right to have rights’ and how it opens the way to a ‘political’ conception of human rights founded on the defence of republican institutions and public-spiritedness. It shows that this ‘political’ interpretation of human rights is itself based on an underlying understanding of the human condition as marked by natality, liberty, plurality and action, The chapter concludes by reflecting on the so-called ‘right to humanity’.

Russian Labor Law: System-Related Problems in its History and Modernity

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (11) ◽  
pp. 0-0
Author(s):  
Николай Демидов ◽  
Nikolay Demidov
Keyword(s):  
Labor Relations ◽  
Labor Law ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Labor Rights ◽  
Law System ◽  
Labor Legislation ◽  
Government Supervision ◽  
Hired Labor ◽  
The Right ◽  
High Degree

The article analyzes system-related contradictions inherent to the development of the Russian labor law branch in XIX—XX. By means of historical-legal, comparative, dialectic methods the author investigates the roots of modern problems in law-making and law enforcement in legal regulation of hired labor relations. The author reveals negative factors in the development of the labor legislation, that are common for Russia and world leading countries. Among main evolutional problems in labor law, the author considers excessive centralization, a high degree of the right enforcement formalization, susceptibility of the branch to political environment, an important role of non-legal regulators of labor relations, low development level of security arrangements for labor rights, inadequate government supervision, a division of employees and employers’ interests, that is not always correct. The author draws the conclusion about the implicit, objective nature of the described defects and notes an essential impossibility to overcome them.

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