Several thousand union and environmental activists marched in Portland, Ore., Dec. 10, to highlight the impact of trade on workers’ rights and to support federal employees who are being denied the right to organize. Among them: the Oregon AFL-CIO; the AFL-CIO Community affiliate, Working America; the Sierra Club; Jobs with Justice; the Portland Central America Solidarity Committee (PCASC)/Cross Border Labor Organizing Coalition (CBLOC); and the Oregon Fair Trade Coalition.

In Boston, 4,000 workers from across New England marched and rallied at a Dec. 8 Workers' Freedom Trail event in honor of International Human Rights Day. Following a kick-off rally, the workers, led by a town crier and bagpipers and drummers from the Electrical Workers Local 103, marched to several locations, including a department store where unity groups successfully fought off attempts by Wal-Mart to locate in downtown Boston and a Verizon Wireless location, where workers from IBEW, Communications Workers of America and other unions have been forced to deal with Verizon Wireless's union-busting tactics of harassment and intimidation against workers.

Despite a roaring blizzard and up to 10 inches of snow, more than 200 Chicago-area union members, activists and allies marked International Human Rights Day with a Dec. 8 rally at the Historic Haymarket Memorial. The rally highlighted efforts by employees to form a union with AFSCME in the Resurrection Health Care hospital system and with IBEW at Comcast Corp. Workers shared stories of intimidation, harassment and even firing by their employers for speaking out and trying to form a union at their workplaces.

More than 2,000 union members and allies such as the National Education Association (NEA) gathered at the AFL-CIO building in Washington, D.C., Dec. 8 for a rally and march to the White House. Clyde Rucker, a Maryland Verizon worker fired for seeking to form a union was among the speakers, who also included AFSCME President Gerald McEntee, AFGE President John Gage, Air Line Pilots President Duane Woerth, AFT Executive Vice President Antonia Cortese, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson and NEA President Reg Weaver.

As workers marched in a massive picket line in front of the White House chanting, "Union busting is disgusting," a delegation of union leaders delivered to the White House gates the petition signed by 100,000 workers calling on the president to honor federal workers' freedom to form a union. 

Workers and union leaders, including Brian McLaughlin, president of the New York City Central Labor Council, and AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson, held a candlelight demonstration Dec. 7 at Washington Square Park to call attention to several workers’ struggles, including New York University graduate employees who are on strike to protest the university’s refusal to bargain a second contract.

As part of nationwide events marking International Human Rights Day, workers, political leaders and students rallied in Philadelphia Dec. 8 in support of graduate assistants at the University of Pennsylvania trying to form a union with AFT.

Hundreds of workers in Oakland took part in two events to mark International Human Rights Day by calling for the right to form unions free from employer harassment and intimidation. Marching to City Hall Dec. 6, workers and union leaders highlighted the struggle Comcast workers face in their efforts to join a union with CWA. At a workers' rights hearing that same day, workers testified about the failure of U.S. labor law to protect workers who try to join unions.

Dozens of union members and allies took part in a Dec. 6 town hall meeting in Philadelphia as part of a series of events leading up to International Human Rights Day, Dec. 10.

In the first of several events marking International Human Rights Day in Philadelphia, Republican Reps. Mike Fitzpatrick and Curt Weldon met with union members and their allies Dec. 6. The two members of Congress signed on as co-sponsors of the Employee Free Choice Act (S. 842 and H.R. 1696), which would strengthen protections for workers’ freedom to choose by requiring employers to recognize a union after a majority of workers signs cards authorizing union representation.

After attending a town hall meeting on the right to form unions, more than 250 union members and community activists protested cable giant Comcast’s anti-union actions Dec. 5 by paying their bills in person and pasting bright red stickers on them with the phrase, “We're watching workers’ rights.” They also rallied outside Healthy Start, a government-funded agency that assists low-income mothers, where a worker was fired for trying to form a union with the United Steelworkers.