Labor rights or workers' rights are both
legal rights
Some philosophers distinguish two types of rights, natural rights and legal rights.
* Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government, and so are ''universal'', ''fundamental rights ...
and
human rights
Human rights are universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...
relating to
labor relations between workers and
employers. These rights are codified in national and international
labor and employment law. In general, these rights influence working conditions in the relations of employment. One of the most prominent is the right to
freedom of association
Freedom of association encompasses both an individual's right to join or leave groups voluntarily, the right of the group to take collective action to pursue the interests of its members, and the right of an association to accept or decline membe ...
, otherwise known as the
right to organize. Workers organized in
trade union
A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...
s exercise the
right to collective bargaining to improve working conditions.
Labor background
Throughout history, workers claiming some sort of right have attempted to pursue their interests. During the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
, the
Peasants' Revolt
The Peasants' Revolt, also named Wat Tyler's Rebellion or the Great Rising, was a major uprising across large parts of England in 1381. The revolt had various causes, including the socio-economic and political tensions generated by the Black ...
in
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
expressed demand for better wages and working conditions. One of the leaders of the revolt,
John Ball, famously argued that people were born equal saying, "When
Adam
Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems (including Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism and Islam).
According to Christianity, Adam ...
delved and
Eve
Eve is a figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. According to the origin story, "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the universe and its inhabitants came to be. Creation myths develop through oral traditions and there ...
span, who was then the gentleman?" Laborers often appealed to traditional rights. For instance, English peasants fought against the
enclosure movement, which took traditionally communal lands and made them private.
The
British Parliament passed the
Factory Act 1833 which stated that children under the age of 9 could not work, children aged 9–13 could only work 8 hours a day, and children aged 14–18 could only work for 12 hours a day.
Labor rights are a relatively new addition to the modern corpus of human rights. The modern concept of labor rights dates to the 19th century after the creation of
labor union
A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...
s following the
industrialization
Industrialisation (British English, UK) American and British English spelling differences, or industrialization (American English, US) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an i ...
processes.
Karl Marx
Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
stands out as one of the earliest and most prominent advocates for workers' rights. His philosophy and economic theory focused on labor issues and advocates his economic system of
socialism
Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...
, a society that would be ruled by the workers. Many of the
social movement
A social movement is either a loosely or carefully organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a Social issue, social or Political movement, political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to re ...
s for the rights of the workers were associated with groups influenced by Marx such as the socialists and
communists
Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, d ...
. More moderate
democratic socialists and
social democrats
Social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, s ...
supported workers' interests as well. More recent workers' rights advocacy has focused on the particular role, exploitation, and needs of women workers, and of increasingly mobile global flows of casual, service, or guest workers.
Core labor standards
Identified by the
International Labour Organization
The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is one of the firs ...
(ILO) in the
Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work
The Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work was adopted in 1998, at the 86th International Labour Conference and amended at the 110th Session (2022). It is a statement made by the International Labour Organization "that all Membe ...
,
core labor standards are "widely recognized to be of particular importance". They are universally applicable, regardless of whether the relevant conventions have been ratified, the level of development of a country or cultural values. These standards are composed of qualitative, not quantitative, standards and do not establish a particular level of working conditions, wages or health and safety standards.
They are not intended to undermine the
comparative advantage
Comparative advantage in an economic model is the advantage over others in producing a particular Goods (economics), good. A good can be produced at a lower relative opportunity cost or autarky price, i.e. at a lower relative marginal cost prior t ...
that developing countries may hold. Core labor standards are important human rights and are recognized in widely ratified
international human rights instruments
International human rights instruments are the treaties and other international texts that serve as legal sources for international human rights law and the protection of human rights in general. There are many varying types, but most can be cla ...
including the
Convention on the Rights of the Child
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (commonly abbreviated as the CRC or UNCRC) is an international international human rights treaty which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of ch ...
(CROC), the most widely ratified human rights treaty with 193 parties, and the ICCPR with 160 parties. They have been incorporated into different provisions that are related to labor in
soft law instruments such as the UN's Global Compact, the OECD Guidelines, and the ILO MNE Declaration.
The core labor standards are:
* Freedom of association: workers are able to join trade unions that are independent of government and employer influence.
* The right to collective bargaining: workers may negotiate with employers collectively, as opposed to individually.
* The prohibition of all forms of forced labor: includes security from prison labor and slavery and prevents workers from being forced to work under duress.
* Elimination of the worst forms of child labor: implementing a minimum working age and certain working condition requirements for children.
* Non-discrimination in employment:
equal pay for equal work.
Very few ILO member countries have ratified all of these conventions due to domestic constraints yet as these rights are also recognized in the UDHR, and form a part of
customary international law they are committed to respecting these rights. For a discussion on the incorporation of these core labor rights into the mechanisms of the
World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland that regulates and facilitates international trade. Governments use the organization to establish, revise, and enforce the rules that g ...
, see
Labour standards in the World Trade Organization. There are many other issues outside of this core, in the UK employee rights include the right to employment particulars, an itemized pay statement, a disciplinary process at which they have the right to be accompanied, daily breaks, rest breaks, paid holidays, and more.
Labor rights issues by topics
Aside from the right to organize, labor movements have campaigned on various other issues that may be said to relate to labor rights. The labor movement began to improve the working conditions of the workers. Dating back to 1768 the first strike of the New York journeyman tailors protested a wage reduction. This marked the beginning of the movement. Approaching the 19th century, labor unions were formed to improve the working conditions for all of workers. They fought for better wages, reasonable hours, and safer working conditions. The labor movement led efforts to stop child labor, give health benefits, and provide aid to workers who were injured or retired. The following are explained more in the following sections.
Hour limits
Many labor movement campaigns have to do with limiting hours in the workplace. 19th century labor movements campaigned for an
eight-hour day. Worker advocacy groups have also sought to limit work hours, making a working week of 40 hours or less standard in many countries. A
35-hour workweek was established in France in 2000, although this standard has been considerably weakened since then. Workers may agree with employers to work for longer, but the extra hours are payable
overtime. In the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
the working week is limited to a maximum of 48 hours ''including'' overtime (see also
Working Time Directive 2003).
Workplace conditions
Labor rights advocates have worked to improve workplace conditions that meet established standards. During the
Progressive Era, the United States began workplace reforms, which received publicity boosts from
Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American author, muckraker journalist, and political activist, and the 1934 California gubernatorial election, 1934 Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party ...
's ''
The Jungle
''The Jungle'' is a novel by American author and muckraking-journalist Upton Sinclair, known for his efforts to expose corruption in government and business in the early 20th century.
In 1904, Sinclair spent seven weeks gathering information ...
'' and events such as the 1911
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Labor advocates and other groups often criticize production facilities with poor working conditions as
sweatshops and
occupational health
Occupational safety and health (OSH) or occupational health and safety (OHS) is a multidisciplinary field concerned with the safety, health, and welfare of people at work (i.e., while performing duties required by one's occupation). OSH is re ...
hazards and campaign for better labor practices and recognition of workers' rights throughout the world.
Safety and social sustainability
Recent initiatives in the field of
sustainability
Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...
have included a focus on
social sustainability, which includes promoting workers' rights and safe working conditions, prevention of
human trafficking
Human trafficking is the act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring, or receiving individuals through force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of exploitation. This exploitation may include forced labor, sexual slavery, or oth ...
, and elimination of illegal child labor from the sustainably sourced products and services.
Organizations such as the
U.S. Department of Labor
The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for the administration of federal laws governing occupational safety and health, wage and hour standards, unem ...
and
Department of State have released studies on products that have been identified as using child labor and industries using or funded by human trafficking. Labor rights are defined internationally by sources such as the Norwegian
Agency for Public Management and eGovernment (DIFI) and the
International Finance Corporation performance standards.
Living wage
The labor movement pushes for guaranteed
minimum wage
A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. List of countries by minimum wage, Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation b ...
laws, and there are continuing negotiations about increases to the minimum wage. However, opponents see minimum wage laws as limiting employment opportunities for unskilled and entry-level workers.
The benefits and costs of
foreign direct investments on labor rights are often argued. Payton and Woo's study shows that even though "workers may not see drastic increases in minimum wages but they will benefit marginally from better enforcement of existing minimum wage laws or other protections granted in law, gradually improving overall working conditions, as more FDI flows in."
Globalization
In March 2004, the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization issued a report called "A Fair Globalization: Creating Opportunities for All". The report acknowledges how potential globalization can affect labor rights. Reforming globalization will require cooperation not only within the country but also at the global level. It suggests political authorities to "renew their attention to global solidarity".
Workers' rights advocates have been concerned with how
globalization
Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...
can impact labor rights in different countries. Some international agencies and global corporations see strong enforcement will limit a country's economic growth.
As companies outsource their work to workers from lower-wage countries, governments will relax their regulations to attract businesses.
As a result, poor countries implement a lower labor rights standard to compete with other countries.
Layna Mosley's study shows that collective labor rights have declined since the recent global expansion started. By having multiple countries sign agreements and
treaties
A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between sovereign states and/or international organizations that is governed by international law. A treaty may also be known as an international agreement, protocol, covenant, convention ...
, labor rights are able to be protected across the globe. However, some countries sign it even though they are not planning to follow the rules. Therefore, there might be room for labor rights practices to suffer.
However, some argued that globalization can improve labor rights enforcement by responding to other country's demands. Governments will act in their national interests, so when an important trading country urges for strong labor rights enforcement, they will act accordingly.
Labor rights issues by demographics
Child labor

Labor rights advocates have also worked to combat
child labor. They see child labor as exploitative, and often economically damaging. Child labor opponents often argue that working children are deprived of an education. In 1948 and then again in 1989, the United Nations declared that children have a right to social protection.
It is hard for children to fight for their basic rights, especially in the workplace. They are often under-treated. Employers take advantage of child labor because they lack the ability to bargain collectively and compromise to work at an unpleasant workplace. Almost 95% of child labor occurs in
developing countries
A developing country is a sovereign state with a less-developed Secondary sector of the economy, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to developed countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. ...
. An example of an industry in which instances of child labor lead to severe injury or death that have been noted are
cobalt
Cobalt is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. ...
mining
Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...
in the
DRC
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...
as well as
copper
Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...
mining in
Zambia
Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...
, where children were reported to be participating in all forms of mining at the expense of their education. There is a growing concern that the rising demand for resources that involve child labor for industries such as the production of
electric vehicle
An electric vehicle (EV) is a motor vehicle whose propulsion is powered fully or mostly by electricity. EVs encompass a wide range of transportation modes, including road vehicle, road and rail vehicles, electric boats and Submersible, submer ...
batteries, will only increase labor rights violations. In India and Pakistan, children work long hours in various industries because of the debt their parents incurred. Poor families sometimes rely on their kids' income to pay bills. In Egypt, about 1.5 million kids under 14 years old are working even though there are child-protective labor laws.
Child labor in the United States
In the United States, the
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) restricts the employment of children. The FLSA defines the minimum age for employment to 14 years for non-agricultural jobs with restrictions on hours, restricts the hours for youth under the age of 16, and prohibits the employment of children under the age of 18 in occupations deemed hazardous by the Secretary of Labor.
In 2007, Massachusetts updated its child labor laws that required all minors to have work permits.
Pregnant employees
The Employment Protection Consolidation Act (EPCA) has established four fundamental regulations for women's employment rights. Firstly, there is the provision of Statutory Maternity Pay, which ensures that a minimum payment is made during the leave period. Secondly, there is the right to maternity leave, which guarantees that women can take time off work and return to their job afterward. Additionally, women have the right to be reinstated to their original position. Finally, the EPCA has reinforced unfair dismissal rights.
Migrant workers
Legal
migrant workers are sometimes abused. For instance, migrants have faced a number of alleged abuses
in the United Arab Emirates (
including Dubai).
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...
lists several problems including "nonpayment of wages, extended working hours without overtime compensation, unsafe working environments resulting in death and injury, squalid living conditions in labor camps, and withholding of passports and travel documents by employers.
Despite laws against the practice, employers confiscate migrant workers' passports. Without their passports, workers cannot switch jobs or return home.
These workers have little recourse for labor abuses, but conditions have been improving. Labor and social welfare minister Ali bin Abdullah al-Kaabi has undertaken a number of reforms to help improve labor practices in his country.
The United Arab Emirates was condemned in a report issued in April 2021 by the Democracy Centre for Transparency calling out the nation for abuse and discrimination against foreigners and expatriates by Emirati citizens. According to DCT, foreigners and expatriates in the UAE are often subjected to gender and wage discrimination, racialization, trafficking, and forced labor. As per the research conducted by the DCT, these issues remain unreported due to the threat and intimidation from their employers in the form of job loss or fabricated criminal charges. The discrimination and abuse have reportedly continued despite the easing of the
Kafala system in the Emirate. The DCT concluded its report urging the UAE to address the issues and put an end to the racial hierarchy and discrimination against non-citizens.
Koelnmesse, the company responsible for managing the pavilion representing
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
at the Expo 2020 reportedly signed an agreement with the Emirati Transguard Group for laundry, cleaning, and security services. Rights groups claim that during the signing of a framework agreement between the two firms, evidence assuring human rights due diligence was overlooked. It is said that the firm withheld the passports and wages of the workers earning relatively lesser than the minimum wage and terminated them from the service without notice.
In neighboring countries such as Qatar, there is a similar problem. Qatar has received a lot of criticism over the way it treats its workers, including those that have worked on FIFA World Cup projects.
The right to equal treatment, regardless of
gender
Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...
,
origin and appearance,
religion
Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...
,
sexual orientation
Sexual orientation is an enduring personal pattern of romantic attraction or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. Patterns ar ...
, is also seen by many as a type of labor right.
Discrimination
Discrimination is the process of making unfair or prejudicial distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong, such as race, gender, age, class, religion, or sex ...
in the workplace is illegal in many countries, though some see the
wage gap between genders and other groups to still be prevalent.
Undocumented workers
Many migrant workers are not getting basic labor rights mainly because they do not speak the local language, regardless of legal status. Some have noticed that they are not getting the correct amount of money on their paycheck while others are underpaid.
Undocumented workers in the United States
The National Labor Relations Act recognizes undocumented laborers as employees. However, the supreme court case ''
Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB'' established that backpay could not be awarded to unlawfully fired undocumented employees due to the
Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. In this court decision, it was also stated that the U.S. would support
FLSA and
MSPA, without regard to whether or not someone is documented.
Undocumented workers also still have legal protection against discrimination based on national origin. The decision of the Hoffman supreme court case has primarily affected undocumented laborers by preventing them from getting backpay and/or reinstatement.
While no undocumented individual is technically able to work in the United States legally, undocumented workers make up 5% of the workforce.
In the U.S., people who were born outside of the country tend to work in riskier jobs and have a higher chance of encountering death on the job. The low-wage sectors, which many undocumented people work in, have the highest rates of wage and hour violation.
Estimates claim that 31% of undocumented people work in service jobs. Restaurant work in particular has a 12% rate of undocumented workers.
Undocumented people can and have joined labor unions, and are even credited by a 2008 dissertation for "reinvigorating" the labor movement.
Because the NLRA protects undocumented workers, it protects their right to organize. However, the NLRA excludes workers that are agricultural, domestic, independent contractors, governmental, or related to their employers.
The right to speak up against labor abuses was protected further by an immigration reform bill in 2013 with the POWER act, which intended to protect employees who spoke out against labor practices from facing detention or deportation.
However, labor unions are not necessarily welcoming of immigrant workers. Within unions, there have been internal struggles, such as when Los Angeles immigrant janitors reorganized service workers. Being a part of the union does not necessarily address all the needs of immigrant workers, and thus winning power within the union is the first step for immigrant workers to address their needs.
Immigrant workers often mobilize beyond unions, by campaigning in their communities on intersectional issues of immigration, discrimination, and police misconduct.
Unionized workers
Labor unions formed throughout the industries. Labor unions in the crafts discovered difficulty in forming labor unions at different skill levels. These skill groups often got divided into racial and sexist ways. In 1895, the white-only International Association of Machinists affiliated with the American
Federation of Labor (AFL), which was founded in 1881. Entering the 20th century African Americans moved from the South into the North only to find that there was discrimination in economic opportunities. Racial stereotypes were used to divide the working class and create segregation. This eventually led to the creation of black codes and
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were U.S. state, state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, "Jim Crow (character), Ji ...
to limit the ability of African Americans to create a living for themselves. The Jim Crow laws passed in the 1800s were laws that forbade African Americans from living in white neighborhoods, along with segregation in public places. these were enforced for public pools, phone booths, hospitals, asylums, jails and residential homes for the elderly and handicapped and more.
Neurodiversity
Neurodiversity considerations may include people on the
autism spectrum
Autism, also known as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by differences or difficulties in social communication and interaction, a preference for predictability and routine, sensory processing d ...
, with
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, and emotional dysregulation that are excessive and pervasive, impairing in multiple con ...
(ADHD),
developmental coordination disorder (DCD, also known as dyspraxia) or
dyslexia
Dyslexia (), previously known as word blindness, is a learning disability that affects either reading or writing. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, reading quickly, wri ...
.
Many consider the term to be psuedoscientific, and a form of phrenology.
Measurement of labor rights
There are several indices, produced by various organizations, that measure labor rights .Some focus on collective bargaining and freedom of association including in datasets produced by the
International Trade Union Confederation
The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC; ; ; ) is the world's largest trade union federation.
History
The federation was formed on 1 November 2006 out of the merger of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) a ...
(ITUC), the
International Labour Organization
The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is one of the firs ...
(ILO), and
Penn State.
[David Kucera and Dora Sari. 2019. ''New labour rights indicators: Method and trends for 2000–15''. International Labour Review, 2019, vol. 158, issue 3, 419–44]
/ref> Others, such as data produced by the V-Dem Institute and UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...
's World Policy Analysis Center focus on other components such as employment discrimination, child labor, and forced labor.[Suggested citation: Coppedge, Michael, John Gerring, Carl Henrik Knutsen, Staffan I. Lindberg, Jan Teorell, David Altman, Michael Bernhard, Agnes Cornell, M. Steven Fish, Lisa Gastaldi, Haakon Gjerløw, Adam Glynn, Sandra Grahn, Allen Hicken, Katrin Kinzelbach, Kyle L. Marquardt, Kelly McMann, Valeriya Mechkova, Pamela Paxton, Daniel Pemstein, Johannes von Römer, Brigitte Seim, Rachel Sigman, Svend-Erik Skaaning, Jeffrey Staton, Eitan Tzelgov, Luca Uberti, Yi-ting Wang, Tore Wig, and Daniel Ziblatt. 2022. "V-Dem Codebook v12" Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Projec]
/ref>
The ITUC produces the Global Rights Index on an annual basis which rates "countries depending on their compliance with collective labor rights and document violations by governments and employers of internationally recognized rights." The ILO produces the data for Sustainable Development Goals, Sustainable Development Goal 8.8.2, which measures the "Level of national compliance with labor rights (freedom of association and collective bargaining) based on International Labour Organization (ILO) textual sources and national legislation, by sex and migrant status. In the past, Penn State's Center for Global Workers’ Rights has produced a set of labor rights indicators which use a similar methodology to the ILO, but have wider country coverage.[Sari, D., & Kucera, D. (2011). Measuring progress towards the application of freedom of association and collective bargaining rights: A tabular presentation of the findings of the ILO supervisory syste]
/ref>
The V-Dem Institute produces a wide range of data on civil rights and democracy. This includes data on the prevalence of forced labor and data on civil society organizations, including trade unions. UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...
's World Policy Analysis Center maintains a database on a range of global legal standards including women's rights, disability rights, child labor, and employment discrimination.
See also
* Decent work
* International Labour Organization
The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is one of the firs ...
* Economic, social and cultural rights
Economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) are Socioeconomics, socio-economic human rights, such as the right to education, right to housing, right to an adequate standard of living, right to health, victims' rights and the right to science and ...
* Industrial democracy
* Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights
* International Labour Organization
The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is one of the firs ...
* International Labor Rights Forum
* Job guarantee
A job guarantee is an economic policy proposal that aims to create full employment and price stability by having the state promise to hire unemployed workers as an employer of last resort (ELR). It aims to provide a sustainable solution to inf ...
* '' Journal of Workplace Rights''
* Labor rights in American meatpacking industry
* Labour Day
Labour Day is an annual day of celebration of the labour movement and its labor rights, achievements. It has its origins in the trade union, labour union movement, specifically the Eight-hour day movement, eight-hour day movement, which advoca ...
* Labour law
Labour laws (also spelled as labor laws), labour code or employment laws are those that mediate the relationship between workers, employing entities, trade unions, and the government. Collective labour law relates to the tripartite relationship be ...
* Occupational safety and health
Occupational safety and health (OSH) or occupational health and safety (OHS) is a multidisciplinary field concerned with the safety, health, and welfare of people at work (i.e., while performing duties required by one's occupation). OSH is re ...
* Right to work
The right to work is the concept that people have a human right to work, or to engage in productive employment, and should not be prevented from doing so. The right to work, enshrined in the United Nations 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Ri ...
* Social clause
* Socialism
Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...
* Strike action
Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike in British English, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to Working class, work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Str ...
* Syndicalism
Syndicalism is a labour movement within society that, through industrial unionism, seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through Strike action, strikes and other forms of direct action, with the eventual goa ...
* Smart contract: can be used in employment contracts
* Union organizer
A union organizer (or union organiser in Commonwealth spelling) is a specific type of trade union member (often elected) or an appointed union official.
In some unions, the organizer's role is to recruit groups of workers under the organizing ...
* Worker cooperative
A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and Workers' self-management, self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a Company, firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one ...
* Workers' council
* Workers' right to access the toilet
* Workplace democracy
Workplace democracy is the application of democracy in various forms to the workplace, such as voting systems, consensus, debates, democratic structuring, due process, adversarial process, and systems of appeal. It can be implemented in a ...
References
External links
Dataset on collective labor rights across all sovereign states, 1985–2002
International Labor Rights Forum
Human Rights Watch
International Labor Organization
Workers' rights page at the Bureau of International Labor Affairs, U.S. Department of Labor
International Network for Economic, Social & Cultural Rights
ITUC Global Rights Index 2020
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Labour law