Join racial justice discussion on Human Rights Day Dec. 10

December 10th is Human Rights Day!

All union members and community supporters are invited to celebrate by joining the AFT Washington’s Human Rights Committee for a Zoom conversation on Racial Justice, Human Rights and the Labor Movement on Thursday, Dec. 10 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. A panel of guests will include Kasi Perreira of the Washington State Labor Council, Cherika Carter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (and the WSLC), and representatives of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, and Labor Council for Latin American Advancement. Click here to register.

The conversation will focus on elements of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations on Dec. 10, 1948. Panelists will discuss topics ranging from the historic protests last spring and how they impact the labor movement to building an anti-racist labor movement.

The theme of this year’s Human Rights Day is “Recover Better.” The COVID-19 crisis has been fueled by deepening poverty, rising inequalities, structural and entrenched discrimination, and other gaps in human rights protection. Only measures to close these gaps and advance human rights can ensure we fully recover and build back a world that is better, more resilient, just, and sustainable.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and it has been translated into more than 500 languages. Article 23 of the Declaration reads.

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.

Questions about this Thursday’s conversation? Email AFT Washington’s Ray Carrillo.