Workers' rights are under threat across the world

In UK, US and Europe, the depletion of collective bargaining threatens workers' economic security and their human rights

Keith Ewing
guardian.co.uk, Monday 4 April 2011 18.00 BST

Dr Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis on this day in 1968. He was there to support striking sanitation workers, fighting for the right to have their union recognised by their employer; fighting for the right to collective bargaining.

Today is also a day of international solidarity with the public service workers of Wisconsin, whose right to bargain collectively has been stripped away by legislation sponsored by state governor Scott Walker, a man who has led the great state of Wisconsin to pariah status.