Dear Editor,
A new advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice affirming the right to strike under the United Nations International Labour Organization’s Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise:
The Clerical & Commercial Workers’ Union (CCWU) welcomes the International Court of Justice’s recent historic ruling affirming that the right to strike is protected under international law. For more than 70 years, the International Labour Organization’s supervisory bodies have held that the right to strike is essential to the right to organise.
This decision affirms decades of judicial precedent and the understanding shared by workers around the world: there is no right to organise and bargain collectively without the right to strike. When workers are barred from collective action on the job, they cannot defend their rights or demand the workplace conditions and contracts they are owed.
At a time when workers’ organisations face sustained attacks worldwide, this opinion reaffirms that the freedom to withhold one’s labour is not a privilege granted by the powerful but a fundamental human right grounded in international law. The CCWU commends the International Trade Union Confederation and its legal team for their efforts in achieving this result.