Free­dom of peace­ful assem­bly and asso­ci­a­tion, says a new Unit­ed Nations report , ​“are essen­tial to human dig­ni­ty, eco­nom­ic empow­er­ment, sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and democ­ra­cy. They are the gate­way to all oth­er rights; with­out them, all oth­er human and civ­il rights are in jeop­ardy.” But these rights, says the report, are being jeop­ar­dized by the recent dra­mat­ic rise in the pow­er of large multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions and their depen­dence on glob­al sup­ply chains and the grow­ing infor­mal and migrant work­force. While these rights are most imper­iled in the world’s poor­est coun­tries, work­ers in the Unit­ed States are also fac­ing these problems.

Under­tak­en by the spe­cial rap­por­teur on the rights to free­dom of peace­ful assem­bly and of asso­ci­a­tion, the U.N. report sin­gles out the plight of migrant, women and domes­tic work­ers, many of whom lack for­mal employ­ment. In fact, world­wide, most work­ers are now with­out for­mal employ­ment arrange­ments. Accord­ing to the report, an esti­mat­ed 60.7 per­cent of the world’s work­ers ​“labor in the infor­mal econ­o­my, where employ­ment rela­tion­ships are not legal­ly reg­u­lat­ed or social­ly pro­tect­ed.” In some coun­tries this work­force ris­es to 90 per­cent. The report also notes that while such employ­ment has always exist­ed, the rise of glob­al sup­ply chains has ​“expo­nen­tial­ly expand­ed its growth.” As a result, some 1.5 bil­lion peo­ple or 46 per­cent of the world’s work­ers, now expe­ri­ence what the report calls ​“pre­car­i­ous employ­ment.” More than 70 per­cent of peo­ple in South­ern Asia and sub-Saha­ran Africa work this way.

This work­force includes self-employed, con­tract and part-time work­ers, and day labor­ers — and often those work­ing in spe­cial eco­nom­ic zones where, as the report describes, ​“work­er pro­tec­tions are sharply reduced or elim­i­nat­ed in order to attract for­eign invest­ment.” It encom­pass­es pro­fes­sions of all skill lev­els, from teach­ers, to taxi dri­vers, call-cen­ter and agri­cul­tur­al work­ers. These arrange­ments often involve on-call sched­ules, short-term con­tracts and mul­ti-lay­ered sub­con­tracts — all of which add to work­ers’ dif­fi­cul­ties in assert­ing rights and dif­fi­cul­ties in enforc­ing labor laws. Women, because they make up the major­i­ty of the world’s agri­cul­tur­al and domes­tic work­ers, are espe­cial­ly bur­dened by the lack of labor protections.

As any­one work­ing in this world knows, such jobs do not have typ­i­cal employ­ment ben­e­fits like health and unem­ploy­ment insur­ance, sick leave, over­time pay and oth­er wage pro­tec­tions. Work­ers have lit­tle oppor­tu­ni­ty to orga­nize, form unions or bar­gain for high­er wages and bet­ter work­ing con­di­tions. This sit­u­a­tion, says the U.N. report, is con­tribut­ing to wealth inequal­i­ty worldwide.

But it’s not just glob­al­iza­tion that’s swelling the ranks of work­ers whose right to orga­nize is in jeop­ardy. Con­flict, war and cli­mate change are also con­tribut­ing to the world’s grow­ing migrant pop­u­la­tion that’s now its largest since World War II, notes Roger-Mark De Souza, direc­tor of pop­u­la­tion, envi­ron­men­tal secu­ri­ty and resilience at the Wil­son Cen­ter. These peo­ple ​“have become a major low-wage work­force that is exclud­ed from oppor­tu­ni­ties to bar­gain col­lec­tive­ly for improved wages and work­ing con­di­tions,” says De Souza. And, he explains, these work­ers are now woven into the fab­ric of world eco­nom­ics — send­ing to their home coun­tries an esti­mat­ed $580 bil­lion in 2014.

The Unit­ed States is no exception

While the impact of work­ing with­out the free­dom to orga­nize is most dire in the world’s poor­est coun­tries, ​“the U.S. is no excep­tion to the types of labor rights abus­es the report lays out,” Oxfam Amer­i­ca region­al direc­tor Minor Sin­clair tells In These Times. ​“The abus­es of labor and the changes in the econ­o­my, and how that dis­ad­van­tages labor and labor rights — the U.S. is as much caught up in that as any oth­er coun­try,” says Sinclair.

The economy’s struc­ture is chang­ing ​“in a way that dis­ad­van­tages even more work­ers,” Sin­clair explains. Whether through lay­ers of sub­con­trac­tors that ulti­mate­ly employ fac­to­ry work­ers in Bangladesh, U.S. meat pro­cess­ing work­ers or col­lege grad­u­ates work­ing the ​“gig econ­o­my,” the report reflects the fact that ​“increas­ing­ly, peo­ple don’t have employ­ers that are respon­si­ble for work­ers’ rights,” says Sin­clair. And this makes it ​“hard­er for work­ers to advo­cate for (these rights) and protections.”

The impacts of this sit­u­a­tion are, of course, most acute at the low-wage end of the employ­ment spec­trum, a work­force that often includes immi­grant work­ers. In the Unit­ed States, as else­where, farm­work­ers and food pro­cess­ing work­ers are espe­cial­ly vul­ner­a­ble and lack­ing in pro­tect­ed labor rights, as are domes­tic work­ers. The report says that in the Unit­ed States, immi­grant work­ers ​“who attempt to exer­cise their rights are often black­list­ed by employ­ers, who use the threat of denied future work oppor­tu­ni­ties to silence workers.”

Sin­clair also notes the impact and rise of right-to-work laws across the Unit­ed States, which are now in place in 26 states. ​“Basic labor rights, the right to union­ize and right to strike, are severe­ly com­pro­mised by right-to-work laws,” he says. The report describes what’s hap­pened to work­ers in states in the U.S. South where these laws are in place — and how cor­po­ra­tions have tak­en advan­tage of the lack of unionization.

Solu­tions

When it comes to solu­tions, the U.N. report sees lit­tle progress in sup­port of work­ers’ free­dom to assem­ble and orga­nize com­ing from vol­un­tary cor­po­rate social respon­si­bil­i­ty and audit­ing pro­grams. Such pro­grams, says the report, ​“are not a sub­sti­tute for legal­ly bind­ing, robust enforce­ment of the rights to free­dom of peace­ful assem­bly and of asso­ci­a­tion.” It calls on busi­ness­es to refrain from anti-union poli­cies and prac­tices and to sup­port labor rights through­out their sup­ply chains, espe­cial­ly for work­ers in ​“vul­ner­a­ble sit­u­a­tions,” includ­ing migrant and minor­i­ty group workers.

Despite this trend, Oxfam’s Sin­clair says he sees ​“some real signs of hope in the leg­isla­tive work around the right to $15 per hour and the new fed­er­al over­time reg­u­la­tion.” He also notes that, albeit slow­ly, cor­po­ra­tions are begin­ning to real­ize that ​“rights ero­sion is not a sus­tain­able busi­ness mod­el.” That said, he also fears that we’re mov­ing towards ​“a bipo­lar work sit­u­a­tion,” where ​“some peo­ple have work­ers’ rights and some peo­ple don’t.” But because this sit­u­a­tion now affects every­one from uni­ver­si­ty teach­ers to auto man­u­fac­tur­ing and farm work­ers, he also holds out hope the issue of work­ers’ rights will final­ly get sub­stan­tive attention.

“We wel­come the U.N. report and the oppor­tu­ni­ty it pro­vides to raise aware­ness and high­light the many chal­lenges work­ers still face glob­al­ly in exer­cis­ing this fun­da­men­tal right to free­dom of asso­ci­a­tion,” Car­ol Pier, deputy under­sec­re­tary for inter­na­tion­al labor affairs at the U.S. Depart­ment of Labor, said in a state­ment. ​“Work­ing to pro­tect and pro­mote work­ers’ rights to orga­nize and bar­gain col­lec­tive­ly is a pri­or­i­ty for the Depart­ment, at home and abroad.”

Cur­rent­ly on the U.N. agen­da: a legal­ly-bind­ing human rights agree­ment for cor­po­ra­tions and businesses.