Aspirations
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
By
Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Dean of the Congressional Black Caucus, co-authored by Gertrude
Schaffner Goldberg and Sheila Collins
On Tuesday, December 10 the world observed Human Rights Day, marking the 65th
anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations of a Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. It is sometimes forgotten that this Universal Declaration has
important roots in American soil. The Commission that framed the Universal
Declaration was led by Eleanor Roosevelt who was deeply influenced by her
husband, President Franklin Roosevelt's thinking, particularly regarding the
interdependence of economic, political, and civil rights. As she observed at
the time, President Roosevelt believed that freedom without bread was
meaningless.
In
his Annual Message to Congress in 1944, President Roosevelt went further in
joining the vaunted American ideal of freedom and liberty to economic rights:
by proposing an Economic or Second Bill of Rights. In this message, Roosevelt referred to the U.S. Constitution and invoked
familiar words, phrases and ideals from the American Declaration of
Independence:
This Republic had its
beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain
inalienable political rights.... They were our rights to life and liberty.
As our nation has grown in size and stature, however--as our industrial economy
expanded--these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the
pursuit of happiness.
We have come to a clear realization of the
fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and
independence.....
In our day these economic truths have become
accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of
Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established
for all....
Roosevelt's Economic Bill of
Rights began with the guarantee of what he subsequently referred to as the
"paramount right" -- the right to useful work. It was to be
living-wage work that would "earn enough to provide adequate food and
clothing and recreation." The Universal Declaration, for its part, further
elaborated this economic right, calling, in addition to the right to work, the
right for just and favorable payment, for equal pay for equal work, and for the
right to form and join trade unions.
Unfortunately,
this paramount economic right has not been accepted as self-evident, either in
the United States
or elsewhere. The failure to guarantee this right is not simply a consequence
of the worldwide Great Recession. Also at play, is the divergence between
productivity growth and wage growth, where gains have gone almost exclusively
to the top earners -- exacerbating income inequality. An estimated 18 million
people in the United States
are working poor, meaning they are employed full-time, year-round for less than
the four-person poverty level -- around $22,000 in earnings per year.
Meanwhile, 10.9 million Americans are unemployed and an additional 5.7 million
"missing workers" have completely dropped out of the jobs search and
are no longer counted in the monthly Jobs Reports.
The
rise in poverty in America
underscores that it is time for Congress to act, to pivot away from austerity,
and focus on creating jobs and economic growth for everyone, as it has done
historically. Today, millions of American families are struggling to satisfy
their basic needs. Our solution to this poverty and unemployment crisis is the
"Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Training Act" (H.R. 1000), a
21st Century New Deal proposal to put all Americans to work rebuilding and
modernizing our communities.
The
declared ideals of nations or united nations are important, for even though
achievements fall short of aspirations, they can serve to urge humanity
forward. Take the paradox of a Declaration by slaveholders that "all men
are created equal." Even at the dark moment when too many of the gains of
Civil War had been lost, the great African-American leader W.E.B. DuBois urged
his people to "cling unwaveringly" to "those great words"
of the Declaration. In observing Human Rights Day we must "cling
unwaveringly" to the ideals of the Universal Declaration and its stirring
American antecedents, but we must seize the opportunity to take stock of the
gap between aspirations and achievements in order to urge ourselves forward.
Representative John Conyers,
Jr. is the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, representing Southeast Michigan. Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg is
Professor Emerita of Social Policy at Adelphi University.
Sheila D. Collins is Professor Emerita of Political Science at William Paterson University.
They are co-founders of the National Jobs for All Coalition, and
editors/co-authors of the recently published, When Government Helped: Learning from the Successes and Failures of the
New Deal (Oxford
University Press, 2013).
