HISTORY OF THE CALL INTERNATIONAL LABOUR RIGHTS COMMITTEE (ILRC)

The international involvement of CALL began in 1995 when the North American Free Trade Agreement was concluded, which in turn produced the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC), a unique attempt to provide a complaint mechanism against the failure of the American, Canadian and Mexican governments to enforce existing labour law standards.

A first meeting was organized by Claude Melançon and Jeffrey Sack of CALL in 1995 in Cocoyoc, Mexico. This was a conference on NAALC organized as a tripartite event involving government, employer and labour lawyers.  At a second conference, in Mexico City, with the participation of various trade union representatives from Latin America, it was decided to form a North-South organization, called the Laboralistas.

The central activity of the Laboralistas was the enforcement of trade union rights, primarily in Mexico through the NAALC complaint mechanism.

Since 1995, members of CALL have participated in a number of international meetings and conferences, including in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Argentina, Cuba, the United States and Canada. These meetings have helped establish networks of labour lawyers and have helped ILRC members learn about international labour rights issues. 

Members of the ILRC continue to assist in drafting and filing complaints under NAALC. In 2008 members of CALL assisted in drafting and filing a NAALC complaint on behalf of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) in respect of the anti-collective bargaining laws in the public sector in North Carolina. In 2011 members were instrumental in the filing of a complaint against the Mexican government over its efforts to destroy the collective bargaining rights of electrical workers and their union, SME.

The work of ILRC of CALL has also involved efforts to address allegations of environmental and human rights abuses of mining companies, some Canadian, operating in Latin America, to combat the spread of free trade agreements with provisions detrimental to workers in the Americas, and to support the continued struggle to establish trade union rights in Mexico as well as Colombia and other countries. Members of the ILRC are also active in ICTUR, the British based international trade union rights advocacy group in trade union struggles throughout the world.   

CALL has also supported human rights and labour rights efforts in Latin America through donations to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as a lawyers’ human rights collective in Colombia and a human rights education organization, also in Colombia.