[Excerpt] Over the past 50 years, a comprehensive body of international law has affirmed human rights to which all workers are entitled, including the right to form unions and bargain collectively. Although the U.S. government has committed itself to protecting these rights, many American employers fail to live up to these international human rights standards for workers. American workers routinely confront a shameful pattern of threats, harassment, spying, firings and other reprisals against worker activists and a labor law system that is failing to deter such violations.