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!

#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.