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This document of 30 articles represents a culmination of
rights to be internationally respected and protected.
We
unfortunately know from experience, in the fields and the
factories, in Canada and across the world, that these
fundamental and inalienable rights are far too often disregarded
by the "haves" to the detriment of the "have-nots."
Foremost, International Human Rights Day is a day to
celebrate our collective victories in the arena of human rights.
In commemorating this day, we know that individuals who struggle
alone against discrimination and oppression are faced with
sometimes insurmountable odds.
For the last century, it has been through the collective
agitation and the strength of unions that we have been able to
push the envelope of human rights both on the ground and in the
courts. In fact, most human rights cases in Canada are not
brought forward by individuals at human rights commissions.
Rather, it is through the grievance and arbitration procedures,
available to only unionized workers, that numerous human rights
have been won. It of course has not been a road without
significant barriers.
From the days of being considered "criminal conspirators" to the
present, many unionists have given their lives for the basic
human rights we enjoy today.
Unfortunately, our successes are only fleeting when so many
still suffer indignation and discrimination at home and across
the world. Poverty is indisputably both a cause and a result of
human rights violations. There is a significant risk that as the
current economic crisis brought on by the Global North continues
to permanently alter the international economic paradigm, those
already brutally marginalized in the Global South will not only
continue to face social and economic injustice — these sisters
and brothers will face an insatiable economic and human rights
catastrophe.
Despite the work of activists, unions and other civil society
organizations, December 10 will unfortunately pass by hundreds
of millions of people who are unaware of the rights that they
can theoretically demand, that their governments should be
accountable to them and to a wide-ranging body of national and
international law.
This is clearly evidenced by the global plight of migrant
workers. Around the world, we see the International Declaration
of Human Rights treated as a quaint yet irrelevant document
based on economically inefficient principles. However, it is
precisely in a time such as the present, when tens of millions
of predominantly racialized workers from the Global South are
herded North, that the realization of the principles of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Canadian Charter
of Rights and Freedoms are most imperative.
Why? For one, the treatment of migrants in Canada, legalized
through the Federal Government’s Temporary Foreign Workers
Program, is nothing less than a national embarrassment. This
Program strategically and systematically strips migrant workers
of any rights they might have had as domestic workers in favour
of further marginalization and fiscal "flexibility" for
employers. As was the treatment of unionists as a "criminal
conspiracy" a century ago, the treatment of migrant workers is a
seething wound on our national consciousness.
As Canada’s largest private sector union, one of UFCW Canada’s
goals has been nothing less than full implementation of human
rights in the courts, on the street, in the factories, and in
the fields. The premise of equality, enshrined in the Universal
Declaration and the Canadian Charter, can only be realized if we
act on our collective responsibility to vigorously uphold those
rights – particularly where our governments fail to do so.
Silence has never won any rights.
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