Global Crime In Your Backyard

Stefanie Rumple/4/29/08/7:29 AM/Global Crime

Forty labor organizations in Canada, the US, and Mexico have charged North Carolina with violating the NAALC provisions of NAFTA, in not allowing their public employees to join unions or go on strike. Specifically, here are the NC General Statutes regarding unions;

§ 95‑98. Contracts between units of government and labor unions, trade unions or labor organizations concerning public employees declared to be illegal.

Any agreement, or contract, between the governing authority of any city, town, county, or other municipality, or between any agency, unit, or instrumentality thereof, or between any agency, instrumentality, or institution of the State of North Carolina, and any labor union, trade union, or labor organization, as bargaining agent for any public employees of such city, town, county or other municipality, or agency or instrumentality of government, is hereby declared to be against the public policy of the State, illegal, unlawful, void and of no effect. (1959, c. 742.)

§ 95‑98.1. Strikes by public employees prohibited.

Strikes by public employees are hereby declared illegal and against the public policy of this State. No person holding a position either full‑ or part‑time by appointment or employment with the State of North Carolina or in any county, city, town or other political subdivision of the State of North Carolina, or in any agency of any of them, shall willfully participate in a strike by public employees. (1981, c. 958, s. 1.)

§ 95‑99. Penalty for violation of Article.

Any violation of the provisions of this Article is hereby declared to be a Class 1 misdemeanor. (1959, c. 742; 1993, c. 539, s. 667; 1994, Ex. Sess., c. 24, s. 14(c).)

This comes on the heels of a blatant demonstration of the power of workers to protect people's rights in unimagined ways, as the labor unions of South Africa and all across the southern and eastern African coasts united to avert the violent political oppression and possible genocide of the Zimbabwean people. While the South African government did nothing, while the world sat by and watched, Robert Mugabe attempted to import vast quantities of arms (with money that could have been spent on alleviating the food shortage there) from the Chinese for the purpose of oppressing his people still further in the wake of the election he so clearly lost. All hope seemed lost for the oppressed and starving people of Zimbabwe, until the conscience of the dock workers and their collective power superceded the soft-pedaling government stance. The dock workers refused to unload the arms in South Africa's port of Durban, and they sent out a call to the workers of Mozambique and Angola to do the same. Their stubborn refusal to bow to politics forced the Chinese to actually recall their ship amid international embarrassment, and doubtless saved the lives of millions of Zimbabweans. Too right the government can't stand people to organize; they take over where government fails, and actually protect people's rights. As ethnocentric as we are, as much as we believe America is the center of the universe, we don't expect our own government to oppress us. In fact, we don't even refer to it with that terminology. However, when it is a CRIME to go on strike, how can one protect oneself? We have talked about how "terrible" it is that we have no unions here. But now finally someone is doing something about it.

http://www.nupge.ca/news_2008/n22ap08c.htm

Here is the text of the North American Agreement on Labour Cooperation, the labour provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement;
http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/en/lp/spila/ialc/02NAALC.shtml