Posted: Tuesday, 8 December 2009

Workers struggle daily to secure and promote human rights for their workplaces, communities, country and in support of those in other countries. The Canadian Labour Congress representing over 3 million workers, recognizes the strength and commitment of these champions of human rights – their work has a profound legacy.

Following the horrors and economic devastation of World War II, human rights’ activists sought to ensure that respect for human rights and dignity become an international accepted foundation for freedom, justice and peace.

In 1945 the United Nations (UN) was created, with a dream of securing peace and justice in the world by international co-operation. Part of the UN’s task was to establish a set of universally accepted and observed basic human rights, so that people around the world would never again have to go through the abuses they had just suffered.

It was a Canadian, John Peters Humphrey, who was the principal drafter of what we recognize today as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

For the first time, an international document was created and agreed to by the nations of the world, an achievement that is worthy of our ongoing recognition.

Workers continue to play a critical role in giving meaning to the Declaration.

We do this when we stand up and say no to discrimination and exploitation of all forms (Article 2); when we advocate for the rights of others to form and join a union (Article 23); when we fight for the right to social security (Article 22) and education (Article 26); and when we lend our hands and voices to the task of creating a world in which the rights and freedoms of this Declaration can be fully realized for everyone (Article 28).

Yet when our government persists in practices that violate fundamental human rights from handing over Afghan detainees to situations where they likely face torture, to marooning and impeding the rights of citizens to return home to Canada; from enabling the growth of a disposable migrant workforce to frustrating economic justice for equity-seeking communities or advancing surveillance policies that threaten privacy rights of all residents of Canada – then we know our work continues.

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