Featured Faculty: Barbara Fick
Associate Professor of Law
The premise of Notre Dame Associate Professor of Law Barbara Fick’s most recent journal article is a compelling one. She states that democracy cannot flourish in any society without the presence of an independent trade union.
“Trade unions are grassroots organizations which are answerable only to their membership,” says Fick. “They are not beholden to the government or to interest groups, yet have access to the economic elites and political elites.” She adds that the overwhelming majority of citizens in any country are workers, and representation of their rights is paramount to social stability, economic prosperity, and political freedom. “Trade unions provide a voice for citizens, act as a watchdog to make elites accountable, [and] model democratic behaviors…”
A specialist in international and comparative labor law, Fick travels frequently to nations with developing democracies—particularly those in Central and Eastern Europe—which need help organizing workers and chartering effective, independent unions. She was in Ukraine last year and recently returned from the former Soviet nation of Georgia where she worked as a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development.
“Trade unions during Soviet times were controlled by the government and therefore represented the party’s interests rather than the workers,” says Fick. “After the fall of the Berlin Wall, state control of unions dissolved and the members had to figure out how to function independently.” Since 1995 Fick has spent time working with the American Center for International Labor Solidarity advising trade union leaders on how to go about protecting worker rights and ensuring domestic compliance with international labor standards. “Repressive governments have good reason to be concerned about the effect of independent trade unions on their ability to maintain authoritarian control,” says Fick.
Fick adds that, in our increasingly global society, the strength of each nation’s trade unions impact the rights of workers well beyond their own borders. “We can no longer just look at our domestic scene for answers to issues relating to worker problems, because it’s all tied up with capital moving across countries,” she says. “Domestic labor law is virtually a thing of the past, because we are so interconnected with others.”
At the University of Notre Dame, Fick is a faculty fellow at both the Institute for International Peace Studies (since 1987) and the Higgins Labor Studies Program (since 1994), and is a member of the Advisory Council for the Center for Civil and Human Rights.
Learn more about Prof. Fick here: /people/faculty-and-administration/teaching-and-research-faculty/barbara-j-fick
