AFL-CIO Files Another Complaint Against United States in the United Nations

The AFL-CIO has again filed a complaint against the United States at the United Nations, this time on behalf of graduate students at private universities.

According to the Associated Press (AP), “[t]he AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers complained to the International Labor Organization, an agency of the United Nations, about a July 2004 decision by the National Labor Relations Board . . . .”

The decision in question prohibited the forced unionization of graduate students by clarifying their status as students as opposed to employees covered by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

AP continued, “[t]he unions say that decision violates workers’ rights under international labor standards. . . . The NLRB . . . ruled in 2004 that about 450 graduate teaching and research assistants at Brown University in Providence, R.I., could not be represented by the United Auto Workers because they were students, not employees.”

This is not the first time the AFL-CIO has turned to the United Nations to blast the United States. They filed a complaint on the so-called Kentucky Rivers decision and against the Huffman Plastics Supreme Court decision. Americans believe that politics stop at the water’s edge. To turn to an organization that has members who include tyrants and dictators to pressure the United States to change internal policies is an outrage.