Human Rights Are the Core of Ceprodehl's Work

Written by Soccoro Chablé, Director of Ceprodehl

Sixty years have passed since the Universal Declaration on Human Rights was proclaimed, and while we have made significant advances, there is still much to do.

For a long time, labor rights were not associated with human rights. This was due to a lag in the defense and promotion of workers' rights. But above all, it allowed for labor rights and standards to be violated with impunity.

Labor rights are some of the most vulnerable rights because a huge sector of the working class has succumbed to sacrificing their rights in the hope of keeping their jobs, which are often their only source of income and means of survival. And many employers have taken advantage of these circumstances to demand more from their workers.

Ceprodehl, starting with our name — the Center for the Promotion and Defense of Human Labor Rights — aims to connect labor rights to human rights.

For instance, the workshops and trainings that Ceprodehl conducts in various communities with men and women maquiladora workers have allowed workers to reflect on and incorporate human rights in the exercise and defense of their rights as workers. Before, they were limited to focusing on their salaries, assuming this was one of the few rights that they could hope to realize.

Later, through group reflections around the 30 articles that make up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, participants came to understand that their human rights are intimately linked to their daily work. They also discovered that in their workplaces serious violations of their labor human rights are committed daily. Ceprodehl appreciates the significance of the fact that now workers defend their rights, whereas before they were not even aware of them.

Their right to organize, their right to health, their right to a job with dignity, their right not to be discriminated against, their right to equal pay for equal work, their right to adequate breaks and to equitable remuneration, and their right to medical care and social assistance, among others, have enabled workers to aspire to a higher standard of living and to dignified work.

Now workers know that their rights are being violated when they are not provided with insurance, when they are not provided with protective equipment to prevent accidents or illnesses, when they are obligated to work overtime on their only day off, or when they are prevented from organizing into a union.

Women workers now know that their rights are being violated if they are discriminated against for the sole fact of being a woman, if they earn less than men despite carrying out the same work, or if they are fired because of pregnancy.

For our part, as an organization dedicated to promoting and defending labor human rights, Ceprodehl will continue to link the labor sector to other actors, like government authorities, companies, and corporations, so that labor relations are strengthened on a basis of respect.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights offers us the possibility to establish a common central theme among nations — that they must not infringe on these rights, but rather are obligated to fulfill them. Based on this, it has been fundamental for Ceprodehl to incorporate its principles into our daily work and aspire to relations that are just and equitable.