On December 10, Human Rights Day, we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The landmark document enshrines the inherent dignity and rights of all human beings. The UDHR has served as the foundation for an expanding system of human rights protections, inspired many struggles for stronger human rights protections, and calls upon everybody to stand up for human rights. We all have a vital role in protecting and advancing human rights through activism. Solidarity for human rights: Freedom, Equality and Justice for All.
CUPE Saskatchewan reaffirms its commitment to stand in international solidarity with fellow workers and their unions for global justice that protects and advances human rights – including the fundamental right to join a union without fear and to collectively bargain, to bring an end to systemic and deep-rooted inequalities, and to organize and demand better for a more just economy against the growing crisis of affordability and poverty. We need an economy that invests in human rights, works for everyone, and assures human dignity and equal access to public services including affordable housing.
The UDHR has been under a sustained assault in recent years. The world faces many challenges, including pandemics, war and conflicts, significant inequalities, hunger, a growing cost-of-living crisis and poverty for many while corporations make excess profit, climate change and the fight for climate justice and a healthy environment, to the continued attack on labour rights of workers organizing for better wages and jobs against poverty. We must remember the solutions to our greatest challenges are rooted in human rights.
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Did you know Articles 23 and 24 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides protection of Labour Rights?
Article 23 states:
- Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
- Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
- Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for (themselves) and (their) family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
- Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of (their) interests.
Article 24 states:
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
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