This is a response to Sheldon Friedman’s Presidential Address at the annual IRRA-conference, the preceding article.In his Presidential Address Friedman stated that, the right to organize workers together with the right to collective bargaining, are universal rights just as other human rights. Friedman’s main point is that these rights are under severe stress in the United States. The right to union repre- sentation is constantly being violated— very often without the employer being prosecuted or in any other way made responsible for his or her offence.Friedman explains why basic labor rights are comparable with the human rights granted by the United States Constitution by giving several examples of labor rights violations. Friedman did not, however, elaborate on the reasons for these violations. The fact that Friedman discussed only the domestic state of labor standards, implies that an important dis- cussion of the role of trade unions and the international industrial relations in a global economy has not been introduced. As a labor counselor working for the Danish government it is not for me to evaluate Friedman’s Presidential Address nor to take sides in the often very emo- tionally charged American debate about organized labor. Instead, I will address some of the basic considerations motivat- ed by Friedman’s Presidential Address.
