Unfair Advantage: Workers’ Freedom of Association in the United States Under International Human Rights Standards

This book exposes the violations of human rights witnessed daily in workplaces across the United States. Based on detailed case studies in a variety of sectors, it reveals an “unfair advantage” in U.S. law and practice that allows employers to fire or otherwise punish thousands of workers as they seek to exercise their rights of association and to exclude millions more from laws that protect their rights to bargain and to organize. Unfair Advantage approaches workers’ use of organizing, collective bargaining, and strikes as an exercise of basic rights where workers are autonomous actors, not objects of unions’ or employers’ institutional interests. Both historical experience and a review of current conditions around the world indicate that strong, independent, democratic trade unions are vital for societies where human rights are respected