Workers' Rights

Workers' or labor rights indicate a group of assumed human and legal rights regarding the relationship between employer and workers. Although some form of protest against poor working conditions were already present in the Middle Ages (for example, the Peasants' Revolt of 1381), the modern concept of these rights was raised in the 19th century in connection to the establishment of labor unions during the industrial revolution.

During the meeting of the Second International in July 1889, the idea of an international workers' day was launched, a day which is now celebrated on May 1. This date was chosen in commemoration of the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago in 1886, when Chicago police opened fire on workers during a general strike for the eight-hour work day, killing a dozen demonstrators.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) was established in 1919 as a part of the League of Nations, which was established within the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I. The ILO later became a part of the United Nations in 1946. The ILO Declaration of Philadelphia of 1944 stated key principles of the Organization (labor is not a commodity, freedom of expression and association as essential to progress, poverty as a threat to humanity, and equality of opportunity). In 1998 the ILO adopted a Declaration on the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, which covers freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining; elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labor; effective abolition of child labor; elimination of discrimination in respect to employment and occupation. This Declaration has been criticized for not containing any reference to health and safety and working hours, thus creating a sort of separation between different international labor standards.

Since 1950, the ILO and the World Health Organization (WHO) have agreed on the definition of occupational health (revised in 1995) as being “the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social well-being of workers in all occupations; the prevention among workers of departures from health caused by their working conditions; the protection of workers in their employment from risks resulting from factors adverse to health; the placing and maintenance of the worker in an occupational environment adapted to his physiological and psychological capabilities; and, to summarize, the adaptation of work to man and of each man to his job.” In 2007, the World Health Assembly endorsed the WHO Global Plan of Action on Workers' Health (GPA) (2008–17) which is oriented at encouraging the national health systems to respond to the specific health needs of working populations, [Page 797]to establish basic levels of health protection at all workplaces, to ensure access of all workers to preventive health services, to improve the knowledge of protecting and promoting the health of workers, and to stimulate incorporation of actions on workers' health into other policies, such as sustainable development and poverty reduction, according to WHO, 2007. Safety at work is one of the basic points in the ILO's definition of “decent work.”