By Doug Cunningham

[Sweeney]: “In an age of rampant global corporate outlaws the world's workers must forge new alliances to defend their democratic freedom to come together in unions to improve their lives."

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney at the Council of Global Unions conference in Washington, D.C. U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy says workers in the U.S. and around the world have to find a winning strategy to combat the global corporate assault on workers rights.

[Kennedy]: “It is time to stop this global assault on labor rights. It is time to put the brakes on a global economy that creates a boom for business and a bust for labor."

John Linder came home from a military tour of duty in Afghanistan to find his freedom to form a union at Verizon curtailed.

[Linder]: “In most other democracies around the world majority support for the union would be enough. We would have our union."

Kelly Beringer works at Chicago’s Resurrection Hospitals where she, too, feels the sting of the assault on workers' rights.

[Beringer]: "All we ask for is for a fair process which we can decide - free from fear and intimidation - whether to form a union."

Sharan Burrow,of Austrailia, is President of the International Trade Union Confederation.

[Burrow]: “Fundamental human dignity, respect, rights at work. That's the call for all workers and their families."