AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler issued the following statement on a new advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice affirming the right to strike under the United Nations International Labor Organization’s Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize:
The AFL-CIO welcomes today’s historic ruling from the International Court of Justice affirming that the right to strike is protected under international law. For more than 70 years, the International Labor Organization’s supervisory bodies have held that the right to strike is essential to the right to organize. This decision affirms decades of judicial precedent and what workers around the world know: there is no right to organize and bargain collectively without the right to strike. When workers are barred from taking collective action on the job, they cannot defend their rights and demand the workplace conditions and contracts they are owed. The freedom to join a union becomes an empty formality.
At a moment when workers’ organizations face sustained attacks around the world, this opinion reaffirms that the freedom to withhold one's labor is not a privilege granted by the powerful, but a fundamental human right grounded in international law. The AFL-CIO commends the International Trade Union Confederation and its legal team for their efforts in this result.
Contact: Mia Jacobs, 202-637-5018