Disciplining the Notion of "Labour Rights as Human Rights"

Authors

  • Cedric Dawkins Loyola University Chicago
  • Christina Dawkins

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v13i1.4477

Abstract

Beleaguered labour movement advocates are turning to the “labour rights as human rights” framing to address labour issues that have traditionally been tackled by labour unions. Human rights language is indispensable in making the normative case that labour is not a commodity, but an unstructured adoption of the human rights frame poses the spectre of a diminished role for collective labour rights and an overburdened human rights regime. Under the principle of subsidiarity, the notion of human rights substitutes for core labour rights (i.e., freedom of association) where they are absent and reinforces them when they are present. Beyond simply suggesting that both regimes are used to protect labour rights, we propose using the principle of subsidiarity to structure and reinforce the interdependence of human and labour rights.

KEYWORDS: labour rights; human rights; core labour standards

Author Biography

Christina Dawkins

Christina Dawkins founded A4Abolitionist consultancy, a social justice consultancy to advise artists and educators advancing justice for the most vulnerable populations, and the Abolition Project, an organization that produces collaborative art and education projects to combat modern-day slavery. 

Downloads

Published

2022-01-31

Issue

Vol. 13 No. 1 (2022): January 2022

Section

ARTICLES

License

Global Labour Journal's authors grant the journal permission to publish, but they retain copyright of their manuscripts. The Global Labour Journal applies a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License.

Under the terms of this licensing framework anyone is free to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work, under the following conditions:

  1. Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
  2. Noncommercial Use: You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
  3. No Derivative Works: You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.

Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder, the author of the piece. The author's moral rights are retained in this license.