GLOBAL WORKSHOP SERIES 2024-2025

After a successful year of collaboration in the #DW Global Workshop Series 2023-2024, we are excited to continue our partnership with the WageIndicator Foundation for the academic year 2024-2025!

This year, #DemocratizingWork and the WageIndicator Foundation will host five new workshops, starting on November 21 , as part of our #DW Global Workshop Series. Together, we will explore fresh themes focused on reshaping work—not just for greater efficiency, but to create a future of work that is greener, more inclusive, and more democratic.

We can work it out!

Work conditions are changing fast, and many of these changes are globally interconnected. Digitization drives new work patterns and business practices, while the need to decarbonize changes the nature of many jobs. This series brings together progressive academics and practitioners from around the world to discuss these issues with each other but also with all the participants.

Together, we can work it out!

#2 January 30, 2025

“Employment equity and Democratizing Work: A Transformative Framework”

Location: online (registration here)

Organizers: #DemocratizingWork and WageIndicator Foundation

Speakers: Adelle Blackett (McGill, ILO), Jeannine Van der Rheede (University of the Western Cape), Marie Clarke Walker (Principal at Marie Clarke Walker Consulting Inc.) and Ana Virginia Moreira Gomes (International Labour Organization).

Chair: Imge Kaya-Sabanci (IE Business School, Havard University) as chair and Fiona Dragstra (WageIndicator) as support to ground the debate.

In 2023, a groundbreaking report was presented to the Canadian Government by Adelle Blackett, outlining a transformative framework for achieving employment equity and advancing the democratization of work. The report emphasizes that meaningful change requires not only policies that promote fairness in the workplace but also systems that empower workers and prioritize collective well-being over corporate profit.

This session will explore the key ideas and recommendations from Blackett’s report, focusing on how employment equity and the democratization of work are mutually reinforcing goals. Together, they provide a roadmap for building a labor landscape that is inclusive, equitable, and sustainable—a model that addresses systemic barriers while ensuring dignity and rights for all workers.

Adelle Blackett is Professor of Law and the Canada Research Chair in Transnational Labour Law at the Faculty of Law, McGill University. She is a #DemocratizingWork core group member. An elected fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, she was the lead expert on ILO Domestic Workers Convention No. 189, the ILO expert in a deeply consultative tripartite labour law reform process in Haiti, and chair of the Canadian Employment Equity Act Review Task Force and author of its report, A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity. She is widely published in the field of transnational labour law, with a focus on emancipatory approaches. Her book manuscript entitled Everyday Transgressions: Domestic Workers’ Transnational Challenge to International Labor Law (Cornell University Press) garnered the Canadian Council on International Law’s (CCIL) 2020 Scholarly Book Award. She has received many honours, including three honorary doctorates and the Bob Hepple Award for Lifetime Achievement in Labour Law. She is currently completing a book manuscript on slavery and the law.

Jeannine Van der Rheede is a lecturer in the Department of Mercantile and Labour Law at the University of the Western Cape. She is currently serving as chairperson of the Law Faculty’s Employment Equity Committee and member of the University’s Employment Equity Forum. Before joining the University of the Western Cape in 2018 she practiced as an attorney for several years. She holds a Master’s Degree from the University of Cape Town and a PhD in Labour law from the University of the Western Cape. Her research background is in the field of employment equity with a specific interest in affirmative action and black economic empowerment in South Africa.

Marie Clarke Walker is a dedicated mentor and a strong believer that social justice is essential to an equitable world. She was the first Black/Racialized woman to serve as both Secretary-Treasurer and Executive Vice-President of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC). Marie continues to participate and work on many issues that are important to workers and marginalized communities, including ILO Convention 190, gender, workers and human rights. As a member of the federal Employment Equity Task Force, she was an instrumental member of the team, recommending major changes that will make the world of work more equitable. Marie continues to contribute to community empowerment in many ways. She sits on several boards including Homeward Family Shelter and is a member of the 100ABC Women evaluation/selection and planning committees.

Ana Virginia Moreira Gomes holds the position of International Labour Organization Assistant Director-General and Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, based in Lima, Peru since January 1, 2024. In addition to her role at the ILO, she is a full professor at the University of Fortaleza (On leave), teaching in both the Postgraduate Program in Constitutional Law and the undergraduate Law Course. The focus of her research has been on some of themes that also form the ILO’s agenda: the guarantee of international labour standards, social protection, and social dialogue. In addition to her academic research, she has worked closely with some initiatives around public policy developments. She was part of the technical team of the Brazilian National Labor Forum in 2004 and has served on two councils: the State Council for the Rights of Homeless Population in Ceará, and the Scientific Council of the Judicial Research and Data Science Secretariat of the Superior Labor Court in Brazil.

#1 November 21, 2024

”How democratizing work is a key driver in the fight against poverty”

Location: online (registration h ere)

Organizers: #DemocratizingWork and WageIndicator Foundation

Speakers: Olivier De Schutter (UCLouvain, Sciences Po, United Nations), Nicolas Bueno (UniDistance Suisse, University of Zurich), Chidi King (International Labour Organization) and Iolanda Fresnillo (Eurodad). Paulien Osse (WageIndicator) & Isabelle Ferreras (UCLouvain, Harvard) as co-chairs.

Chairs: Isabelle Ferreras (FNRS, University of Louvain, #DW Core group member) and Paulien Osse (Co-Founder and General Director, WageIndicator Foundation)

In June 2024, the United Nations launched a landmark report on the pitfalls of 'growthism', or the belief that our fight against poverty can only succeed if we can increase the aggregate output of the economy. This ideology takes attention away from the need to increase access to those goods and services that improve wellbeing and to reduce the production of that which is unnecessary or even toxic.

This session will delve deep into the ideas and findings of this report, highlighting the need to shift our focus from a profit-driven economy to a human rights-driven economy that does right both by people and the planet.

Olivier De Schutter is the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. An academic specialised in economic and social rights, he was the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food from 2008 to 2014, and a member of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights between 2015 and 2020. Prior to those appointments, he was Secretary-General of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). He teaches at UCLouvain (Belgium) and at Sciences Po (France).

Prof. Dr. Nicolas Bueno is a Professor of International and European Law at UniDistance Suisse and Associate Researcher at the Center for Human Rights Studies at the University of Zurich. He is the co-editor of Labour Law Utopias: Post-Growth and Post-Productive Work Approaches (Oxford University Press 2024, open access). He conducted research on labour rights in global value chains and post-growth theories at The London School of Economics, at the Université catholique de Louvain and at the University of Zurich with funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation. He received the Marco Biagi Award 2017 of the International Association of Labour Law Journals for his article ‘From the Right to Work to Freedom from Work: Introduction to the Human Economy’.

Iolanda Fresnillo joined the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) in 2019 and has coordinated its debt justice work as Policy and Advocacy Manager since 2021. Prior to this she worked for 10 years as a researcher and campaigns coordinator at Observatori del Deute en la Globalització (ODG) (Spain), and for almost another decade as a consultant for international civil society organisations and local institutions in Spain. She has been engaged in the global debt movement for two decades, as well as in local environmental, feminist and economic justice social movements. Fresnillo holds a Masters in Development and International Cooperation and a degree in sociology, both from the University of Barcelona.

Chidi King is Chief of the Gender, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Branch, part of the Conditions of Work and Equality Department of the International Labour Organization. The Branch strives for the elimination of discrimination, including based on gender, race, ethnicity, indigenous status, disability and HIV status, utilizing an integrated and intersectional approach. Before joining the ILO, Ms. King was Director of the Equality Department at the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), where she led work with trade unions on pay equity, the care economy, gender-based violence and harassment at work, women’s leadership, young workers, and rights of migrant workers. Ms. King has also worked as Equality and Rights Officer for the Public Services International, a Global Union Federation, and as Employment Rights Officer for the Trade Union Congress of the UK. A lawyer by background, Ms. King was the senior lawyer of the charity Public Concern at Work (PCaW), where she directly contributed to the drafting of the UK’s Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, and has served on the Board of PCaW, now known as “Protect”. Ms. King has spent over 20 years providing legal and policy advice on issues of equality and non-discrimination with various private, public and not-for-profit sector organizations.

The recording is available in English on this page and below: