Human Rights Program & Women's Program

Human Rights Day - December 10

The United Nations’ Human Rights Day marks the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 by the UN General Assembly. The Declaration states that human rights are universal and that all persons possess fundamental economic, cultural, social, political, and civil rights.

This year witnessed the appointment of former Canadian Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour to the position of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Regrettably, we also witnessed human rights violations and atrocities in many countries around the world - including Canada.

Human Rights abuses in Canada this year include active and ongoing violations of Article 23 of the Universal Declaration which states:

(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

In 2004, the Provinces of Newfoundland and British Columbia introduced and adopted legislation ending legal strikes by public sector workers, and the federal government threatened the PSAC with punitive back to work legislation. Workers, in the hundreds of thousands, from coast to coast, are still denied equal pay for work of equal value, and many face workplace discrimination on the basis of race, disability, age and gender.

And Human Rights abuses, some state sanctioned, are occurring daily in our society with aboriginal people are forced to endure inadequate healthcare, education, housing and employment opportunities.

Around the world Human rights abuses continue unabated. Being an active trade unionist is a death sentence for many workers around the world, with Colombia leading the pack. Many PSAC members in Atlantic and Western Canada had the opportunity to hear this first hand from the Colombian trade unionists on the Frontlines Tour in May 2004 – the first initiative funded by the PSAC Social Justice Fund

Amongst the many human rights tragedies plaguing the world, the United Nations has identified Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. According to the United Nations, “About 1.45 million people are internally displaced within Darfur…while another 200,000 are living as refugees in neighbouring Chad.” Oxfam Canada currently undertaking extensive humanitarian work in Darfur recently wrote PSAC President Nycole Turmel thanking our Union for it’s $25,000 contribution to this humanitarian work (though the PSAC’s Social Justice Fund). In the letter, Oxfam’s Executive –Director wrote “the advocacy and humanitarian support provided by the Canadian Unions to date demonstrates that Canadian Trade Unionists will not stand idly by when countries commit gross humanitarian violations against their citizens”. As we mark December 10th, let us remember that an injury to one is truly an injury to all, and that our actions – from the local to the global – can make a difference in advancing human rights in this world.