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Ela Bhatt, founder of the Self-Employed Women's Association, has been awarded the prestigious George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award 2006.
Heavyweights in the US trade union movement -- led by American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations president John J Sweeney -- and also Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, were on hand to honor Bhatt with the award, given each year to a union activist who has shown both extraordinary courage and commitment to human rights for working people.
Clinton, who has known Bhatt since visiting SEWA during her trip to South Asia with daughter Chelsea in the late 90s, said, "Ela Bhatt and the members of SEWA are a living affirmation of the importance of human rights, the power of union organizing and the value of working together to demand fairness and opportunity."
Speaking at the gala dinner at the AFL-CIO headquarters, Senator Clinton, New York Democrat and co-chair of the Friends of India in the US Senate, said: "Through Ela Bhatt's courage, sacrifice, and dedication to women and all people who are struggling in the absence of opportunity, SEWA has been a force for hope and change and a reminder of the importance of standing up and standing together to build a better world."
Sweeney, in his remarks, described Bhatt as 'an outstanding sister -- a fighter for women's rights and human and labor rights.'
"Every year since 1981, the AFL-CIO had recognized the outstanding achievements of an international labor leader committed to the struggle for peace, justice and democracy through trade union struggle. The award is named after two outstanding US leaders who led American workers and recognized that our labor movement must reach across borders in solidarity with workers struggles around the world," he noted.
Sweeney recalled: "George Meany's effort to support and defend worker movements facing totalitarian governments was instrumental in defeating fascism. And Lane Kirland's personal involvement to encourage self-determination for workers in Poland was a key factor in the emergence of the solidarity union."
He said that Bhatt, who founded SEWA in 1972, is "another leader that is an inspiration for workers around the world."
Sweeney said: "SEWA is a remarkable labor organization -- but it is also more than an organization -- it is a movement. It is a movement of self-employed women: their own, home-grown movement with women as leaders."
"As we face the new century, more than ever," he said, "workers must organize to build their own strength and SEWA can help lead the way for the millions of women workers across the world who remain in poverty and are exploited, despite their long hours of hard labor."
Sweeney said, "SEWA characterizes the type of unionism to take us into the next century. With our Bhatt and others sisters and brothers around the world, we will build alliances to forge a global labor movement that protects worker rights, regardless of their citizenship."
Quoting Gandhi, Sweeney said, "Women are natural leaders in our fight for social justice where love and peace, nonviolence, are the chief weapons of the fighter."
"Bhatt, on behalf of the nine million working women and men of the AFL-CIO, you honor us accepting this George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award," he said, before he called on Clinton to present the award to Bhatt.
Bhatt in her acceptance remarks, said, "This is a moment of deep content for me personally and pride for SEWA and all in SEWA to be honored with the George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award," and added, "It is an honor to be associated with the great labor leaders of this great land."
She said it was a double honor "to be receiving the award from Honorable Senator Srimati Hillary Clinton, whom SEWA sisters have never forgotten as a friend."
Bhatt said that SEWA "wages working class struggles for asserting workers rights, which are human rights, and, also fights for social transformation because the interest of our members has a much broader dimension than just employment."
Bhatt declared that "our source of inspiration has been Mahatma Gandhi's thoughts, and his emphasis on simplicity, non-violence -- that violence in any form cannot lead to lasting resolution of any conflict or reconstruction -- on the dignity and sanctity of labor, and on the importance of human values because nothing that compromises a person's humanity is acceptable."
"And that poverty is wrong because it is ongoing violence. It does not respect human labor, strips a person of his or her humanity, and takes away their freedom."