Wal-Mart Watch?

Amid all the genuine human rights abuses in the world, Human Rights Watch has taken a break from assailing Israel to take aim at American labor law. It does so in the guise of an attack on one of America's most successful companies, Wal-Mart. A 210-page report from Human Rights Watch acknowledges that Wal-Mart is "using anti-union tactics that largely comply with US law." It goes on to recommend, with hardly any justification or consideration of what it would mean to the American economy, a full-scale overhaul of longstanding American labor and benefits law.

"Employers should be banned from hiring permanent replacements during all labor strikes," the New York-based advocacy group says. "They should be allowed to continue operating only with temporary workers who cede their jobs to strikers at the strike's conclusion." The group also recommends that Congress "require all companies to disclose publicly wage information." It says Congress should further require companies "to submit separate tax schedules for each welfare benefits plan offered, including healthcare, publicly disclosing total employer spending per plan and the percentage of total costs of each plan paid by the employer." Talk about red tape.

During the Lebanon War last summer, Human Rights Watch took the position that Israel's self-defense from terrorists was a human rights abuse. Now it is taking the position that anything less than European-style rolling over in the face of labor unions is a human rights abuse. It's getting to the point where the left thinks capitalism itself is a human rights abuse, except when the capitalist is George Soros engaging in trading for the purpose of funding the leftist advocacy groups.

What Human Rights Watch's recommendations would lead to is an America that works like France, where the airports and trains are always on strike and the country's economy slowly grinds its way into oblivion and irrelevance. The recent election results show not even the French want this anymore; no one does but a few out of touch New York "human rights" leftists.