Tag: Mark Ames

Labor was once central to the liberal imagination; today, not so much.

While we’re all arguing about what went down in Wisconsin and about the state of the labor movement, I hope we can agree that the rights of labor are central to any notion of a decent and just society.  Sadly, that proposition remains controversial, and even liberals have retreated from it in recent decades.  (Which is why this post from liberal political theorist Elizabeth Anderson was so refreshing!) In this must-read piece, Mark Ames details the sorry retreat of prominent human rights groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the ACLU from any real commitment to labor rights.  Ames doesn’t mention two excellent reports that the ACLU and Human Rights Watch did prepare on the rights of labor—The Rights […]