ABSTRACT
The human rights and labor rights movements share the fundamental goal of improving human beings’ quality of life. While the labor movement is more focused on ensuring that workers can feed themselves and their families, work in a safe environment, and have a voice in the workplace, the ability of workers to secure these rights has consequences far beyond the workplace and typically requires the right to associate freely, a fundamental human right found in several human rights instruments. It is difficult to imagine an aspect of workers’ lives with farther-reaching consequences than their ability to secure food and lodging for themselves and their families. In fact, fulfillment of many human rights depends, in some measure at least, on individuals’ ability to do just that. Yet, as Leary observes in her seminal article on labor rights as human rights, “the human rights movement and the labor movement run on tracks that are sometimes parallel and rarely meet” (1996, 22). Since Leary’s observation in 1996, however, the tracks have started to converge and on occasion cross.
