Employers’ Unfair Advantage in the United States of America: Symposium on The Human Rights Watch Report* on the State of Workers’ Freedom of Association in the United States
| Author | Stephen Wood,Sheldon Friedman |
| Date | 01 December 2001 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8543.00216 |
| Published date | 01 December 2001 |
Employers’ Unfair Advantage in
the United States of America:
Symposium onThe Human
Rights Watch Report* on the
State of Workers’ Freedom of
Association in the United States
Edited by
Sheldon Friedman and Stephen Wood
* Human Rights Watch, Unfair Advantage: Workers’ Freedom of Association in the United
States under International Human Rights Standards, Washington, DC, 2000.
British Journal of Industrial Relations
39:4 December 2001 0007–1080 p. 585
#Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London School of Economics 2001. Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd,
108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
Employers’ Unfair Advantage in the
United States of America:
Symposium on The Human Rights Watch
Report on the State of Workers’ Freedom
of Association in the United States :
Editors’ Introduction
Sheldon Friedman and Stephen Wood
Ernest Duval, a nursing assistant in a Florida nursing home, was fired in
1994 for participating in a successful union-organizing campaign. Two years
later, a judge found the employer guilty of unlawful discrimination and
ordered Duval and his co-workers to be reinstated to their jobs. The union
ballot had gone in favour of the union, but bargaining had never taken off,
as the remaining workers feared for their jobs. Faced with an appeal from
the employer, the National Labor Relations Board upheld the adminis-
trative law judge’s decision in December 1999. On their instruction Duval
returned to work, but it seemed to him that management had assigned an
employee to constantly watch him and report on any infringements of work
rules. He was threatened with the sack. In March 2000 Duval left and filed
a new unfair labour practice charge of discrimination for union activity.
This is just one of the case studies of problems experienced by workers
when trying to achieve union representation that are reported in Unfair
Advantage. * Itis the Human Rights Watch’s first report analysing a country’s
labour law system for rights violations, and its first report dealing with
international labour rights. Founded in 1978, originally as Helsinki Watch
to campaign on human rights in Europe and Central Asia, the Human Rights
Watch (HRW) has now investigated over 70 countries. HRW produced
reports in the mid-1980s dealing with workers’ rights violations in Central
America, but they were more in the context of overall human rights abuses
Sheldon Friedman is at the AFL–CIO. Stephen Wood is at the Institute of Work Psychology at
the University of Sheffield and Associate of the Centre for Economic Performance, London
School of Economics.
* Human Rights Watch, Unfair Advantage: Workers’ Freedom of Association in the United
States under International Human Rights Standards, Washington, DC, 2000.
British Journal of Industrial Relations
39:4 December 2001 0007–1080 pp. 586–590
#Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London School of Economics 2001. Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd,
108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
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