December 10 marks the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  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 thorough 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.