By Doug Cunningham

Denis Hughes, President of the New York State AFL-CIO, says while workers today on paper have the legal right to form unions and to collectively bargain, that basic human right in far too many cases has been effectively taken away.

[Denis Hughes 1] : "It's a problem that we haven't really seen in America since way before the Great Depression. It's a move against the economic democracy - the right of economic democracy - that every American has based on the right of freedom of association and freedom of assembly. So these are very important times for us. And we have to make sure sure that everybody understands it."

Hughes says actions this week all over the world are bringing people who cherish and want to defend human rights together, whether they are in unions or not…

[Hughes 2] : "Not only the labor movement, but civil rights organizations as well as international rights organizations have the understanding that this in fact is a diminishment of the basic human rights that human beings have, especially in this society and this economy."