GLOBAL WORKSHOP SERIES 2022-2023

 

The #DemocratizingWork Global Workshop Series is organized by #DW National Chapters or the core group, taking turns to discuss actual actions and experimentations around the 3 principles of the #DW Manifesto. Through such workshops, the goal is to learn from, and deepen our own understanding of the challenges faced by these principles when translated into reality, and hopefully support actors in improving their actual realization. 

The inspiration came from the engaging talk by Professor Tatiana Ribeiro during the 2021 Global Forum on Democratizing Work, in her keynote address “The Relevance of Decarbonizing Work for People and the Planet”.

In this section, you will find information related to forthcoming workshops in the #DW Global Workshop Series, as well as information about (and recording when available) past ones. 

Should you be willing to organize such a workshop, just know that the #DemocratizingWork core group is happy to help and support. Please get in touch with us via info@democratizingwork.org.

#1 - October 5, 2022
”Cooperatives Between Worker Activism and Normalization - A Comparative Perspective”

Time: 8-9.30AM NYC | 2-3.30PM Paris | 5.30-7PM New Delhi | 11PM-12.30AM Sydney

Location: online

Organizers: #DemocratizingWork and OSUN Economic Democracy Initiative

Speakers: Sonia Maria Dias (WIEGO), Suroto Ph (AKSES, INKUR Federation), Morshed Mannan (European University Institute, The New School NYC), with Lisa Herzog (University of Groningen, Netherlands) and Flavia Maximo (University of Ouro Preto, Brazil) as chairs

Cooperatives are often seen as the democratic form of work, with workers not only sharing in governance structures, but actually owning the company. And yet, the form that cooperatives take in different countries is very distinct. In some parts of the world, they result from forms of worker activism, often in response to crisis, and are embedded in broader social struggles for social justice and the emancipation of workers. In other countries, they occupy a small, but stable niche and struggle not to become normalized with regard to business practices and work relations. And in the digital sphere, the principle of cooperatives has been rediscovered in the "platform cooperativism“ movement, which sees growing interest in industries such as delivery or household services. 

How much promise lies in the form of cooperatives for organizing work? Do they live up to their promise to give workers real voice in the workplace? How do the experiences in different countries compare, and what can they learn from each other? How could we ensure that more capitalist firms can turn to the cooperative form? This webinar brings together three speakers, from three continents, with ample expertise about the cooperative sector and its specific challenges. Together with them, and in dialogue with the audience, we want to explore how cooperatives can contribute to the democratization, decommodification and decarbonization of work, and what kind of structural changes would allow more cooperatives to be successful. 

Training originally in sociology and with a PhD in Political Sciences, Sonia Maria Dias is a “garbologist” specializing in solid waste management. Prior to joining the Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing network (WIEGO), she has had experience as a city officer working in the municipal cleaning agency of her hometown in Brazil, as a consultant for international agencies, and as an Eisenhower Fellow for the Common Interest Program on Challenges of Urbanization, amongst other voluntary and academic roles. Sonia’s interests include promoting social inclusion, gender equity and occupational health in waste forums worldwide.

Suroto Ph graduated with a bachelor's degree in economic faculty from Jenderal Sudirman University, Purwokerto, Central Java, Indonesia. Since his student days’ he is active in various activities for developing socio-economic, democracy and cooperative thinking and practices. He has led cooperative study institutions and has been the founder of several cooperatives and active in various cooperative activities both nationally and internationally. Currently, he is the Chairman of the National Association of Socio-Economic Strategic Cadres (i.e AKSES) and CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of the National Federation of People's Enterprises Cooperative (i.e INKUR Federation). He has written various freelance articles in various media outlets, especially in the fields of cooperatives and socio-economic, democracy and development issues and actively advocates for various economic regulations and policies.

Morshed Mannan is a legal researcher focusing on blockchain governance and platform cooperatives. He received his Ph.D. from Leiden Law School, Leiden University on the emergence of democratic firms in the platform economy. He is member of the BlockchainGov research project and a Research Affiliate of the Institute for the Cooperative Digital Economy at The New School in New York City. Prior to the MWF programme, Morshed was a Research Associate at the Robert Schuman Centre. During the course of his Ph.D., Morshed acted as an expert for the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs on the legal framework for platform cooperatives and consulted for the International Co-operative Alliance and the NCBA CLUSA-International on topics of cooperative law. Mannan has also been called to the Bar of England and Wales and is enrolled in the Bar of Bangladesh. 

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

 

#2 - January 25, 2023 (! NEW DATE)
”Assessing Global Progress in Advancing
the Job Guarantee”

Time: 7am San Francisco | 9am Mexico City | 10am Montréal-NYC-Bogota | 12pm Santiago | 4pm Paris | 5pm Johannesburg | 8.30pm New Delhi | 10pm Jakarta | 2am Sydney 

Location: online

Organizers: #DemocratizingWork and OSUN Economic Democracy Initiative

Speakers: Kate Philip (Programme Lead on the Presidential Employment Stimulus in South Africa), Olivier De Schutter (UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights), Diego Guevara (General Vice Minister for Finance, Colombia) and Daniel Rojas Medellin (Director, Special Assets Agency, Colombia) as speakers,  Simon Azza (Advisor, Special Assets Agency) and Manuel Martinez (Advisor, Ministry of Finance, Colombia) as discussants, and Pavlina R. Tcherneva (Bard College) as chair

The job guarantee proposal charts a concrete path to securing the second pillar of the Democratizing Work manifesto, namely to decommodify work. It is an economic policy that provides open-ended public employment opportunities to anyone seeking decent, living-wage work. It is a structural stabilization policy that alleviates the economic, social, and political costs of unemployment and precarious employment. It is equity-driven and draws on a long tradition of human rights and social justice.

This panel brings experts and policymakers who are developing or already managing large-scale national employment policies informed by the principles of the job guarantee. There are multi-pronged strategies for securing the right to decent work to all and developing employment-centered economic policies. 

With the threat of unemployment still a significant risk to societies around the world in the aftermath of COVID-19, we must act to ensure that all people who seek a job have access to one, whenever it is needed, and which  allows them to live with dignity and contribute to their communities.

The PowerPoint presentation of Kate Philip (Programme Lead on the Presidential Employment Stimulus in South Africa) is available here.

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

 

#3 - February 15, 2023
”Organizing (Women) Workers for Democratizing Work in India”

Time: 7am San Francisco | 9am Mexico City | 10am Bogota-NYC-Montréal | 12pm Santiago | 4pm Paris | 5pm Johannesburg | 8.30pm New Delhi | 10pm Jakarta | 2am Sydney

Location: online

Organizers: #DemocratizingWork and OSUN Economic Democracy Initiative

Conveners: Neera Chandhoke (Emeritus, University of Delhi) and Harsh Mander (Centre for Equity Studies, Delhi)

Speakers: Renana Jhabvala (Self Employed Women’s Association - SEWA-veteran trade unionist, organising women street vendors) and Anuradha Talwar (PBKMS - veteran trade unionist, organising agriculture and plantation workers) as panelists, and Neera Chandhoke (Emeritus, University of Delhi) as chair

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

 

#4 - March 22, 2023
”Progress on Democratizing the Corporate Firm in Spain”
”Avances en la democratización de la empresa corporativa en España”

Time: 8am San Francisco | 9am Mexico City | 10am Bogota | 11am NYC-Montréal | 12pm Santiago | 4pm Paris | 5pm Johannesburg | 8.30pm New Delhi | 10pm Jakarta | 2am Sydney

Location: online

Organizers: #DemocratizingWork, OSUN Economic Democracy Initiative, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha and European Trade Union Institute/Instituto Sindical Europeo

Speaker: Emma Rodríguez (Advisor to the State Secretary of Employment and Social Economy of the Spanish Labour Ministry and Professor of Labour and Social Security Law at Universidad de Vigo)

Discussants: Pr. Holm-Detlev Köhler (Professor of Sociology at the University of Oviedo), Mª Cruz Vicente (Confederal Secretary of Trade Union Action of Comisiones Obreras) and Bruno Estrada (President of Plataforma por la Democracia Económica)

Chair: Sara Lafuente (researcher at the European Trade Union Institute)

[ENG] The Spanish government has officially announced democracy at work as its third labour priority in view of its upcoming EU Presidency. This will expectedly translate the first principle of the Democratizing Work Manifesto into the concrete political agenda of the EU in the second semester of 2023.

This step echoes a recent debate on industrial democracy and workers participation that has been emerging in Spain in recent years. Spain was historically paradigmatic of Southern European countries where the common sense assumed that companies were to be controlled by their capital investors, and trade unions’ role was broadly limited to negotiate working conditions and wages via collective bargaining. Their possible influence, shared control and responsibility over concrete and strategic company policy in capitalist firms was, at best, approached with much scepticism even by the trade unions themselves.

It seems this common sense could be breaking and giving room to a more offensive and enlarged notion of democracy at work, beyond collective bargaining and trade union elections, that would dispute and challenge authoritarianism in firms’ government, and should contribute to enhance control and redistribute power towards workers ie. the labour investors of the firm and the economy. In this new context, it is discussed how a crucial, yet little-known, article of the Spanish Constitution (article 129) on worker participation rights, should be developed in legislation to secure a legal framework for worker participation in company boards.

This seminar will bring together relevant speakers from the Spanish Ministry of Labour, the academia, trade unions and civil society associations. They will present the state of play of this debate in Spain and the progress expected by the Labour Ministry on this area at national and EU level, then discuss how these proposals could be received, and with what implications, particularly for trade unions and workers at local level.

[SPA] El Gobierno de España ha anunciado oficialmente que la democracia en el trabajo será la tercera prioridad en el ámbito laboral de la próxima Presidencia española de la UE. Se espera que en el segundo semestre de 2023, el primer principio del Manifiesto por la Democratización del Trabajo se traduzca a la agenda política concreta de la UE.

Esta apuesta sin ambages da continuidad a un reciente debate sobre la democracia industrial y participación de las personas trabajadoras que ha surgido en España en los últimos años. Históricamente, España es un ejemplo de país del sur de Europa en el que el sentido común tenía asumido que las empresas debían ser controladas por sus inversionistas de capital, y que el papel de los sindicatos debía esencialmente limitarse a negociar condiciones laborales y salario a través de la negociación colectiva. Su posible influencia, control y responsabilidad compartida sobre la concreta política empresarial y estrategia de las empresas capitalistas se ha abordado, en el mejor de los casos, con mucho escepticismo incluso por los propios sindicatos.

Parece que este ‘sentido común’ podría estar rompiéndose y dando paso a una noción más ofensiva y amplia de democracia en el trabajo más allá de la negociación colectiva y de elecciones sindicales regulares en los centros de trabajo. Dicha noción disputa y desafía el autoritarismo en el gobierno empresarial y podría contribuir a mejorar el control y la redistribución de poder hacia quienes trabajan, es decir, los y las inversionistas de trabajo en la empresa y en la economía. En este nuevo contexto, se discute cómo un artículo crucial, aunque poco conocido, de la Constitución Española (artículo 129) sobre los derechos de participación de los y las trabajadoras, debería desarrollarse en la legislación para asegurar un marco legal efectivo para la participación de las personas trabajadoras y sindicatos en los consejos de administración de las empresas.

Este seminario reunirá a ponentes expertos en el tema, del Ministerio de Trabajo de España, el mundo académico, sindical y de la sociedad civil. Las intervenciones presentarán la situación del debate en España y los avances esperados por el Ministerio de Trabajo en este ámbito a nivel nacional y de la UE, para después debatir cómo podrían ser recibidas estas propuestas y con qué implicaciones, en particular para los sindicatos, trabajadores y trabajadoras a nivel local.

Interpretation Spanish / English will be provided.

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

 

#5 - April 19, 2023
”Deliberating with the Public about Democratizing Work: Reflecting on the Ontario Assembly on
Workplace Democracy, Canada”

Time: 7am San Francisco-Vancouver | 8am Mexico City | 9am Bogota | 10am Santiago-NYC-Montréal | 4pm Paris-Johannesburg | 7.30pm New Delhi | 9pm Jakarta | 12am Sydney

Location: online

Organizers: #DemocratizingWork, Ontario Assembly on Workplace Democracy, and OSUN Economic Democracy Initiative

Speakers: Simon Pek (University of Victoria), Rafael Gomez (University of Toronto), Angelo DiCaro (Unifor), and Greta Whipple (UFCW)

The movement to democratize work is gaining momentum around the world. To date, much policy-making about workplace democracy centers on the perspectives of academic and policy experts, business owners and advocates, and labour advocate. While these perspectives are undoubtedly important, it is also important to learn from and engage with workers of all walks of life to ensure their voices are heard. This webinar explores how this can be done practice. It brings together four panelists to discuss their experience with the Ontario Assembly on Workplace Democracy. This was the first of its kind deliberative mini-public focused on this topic. It brought together 32 Ontarians selected through a democratic lottery to deliberate about their concerns about the status quo and their recommendations for improvement. The four panelists—which include two organizers and two stakeholders—will discuss the origin and format of the initiative, its policy implications, and lessons learned that can contribute to the movement to democratize work.

Simon Pek currently works as an Associate Professor of Business and Society at the Gustavson School of Business at the University of Victoria. His primary research interests centre on helping democratic organizations like co-operatives, schools, and unions achieve their social and environmental objectives through the use of democratic innovations. He is particularly interested in collaborating with organizations on joint action research projects. Simon served as the Steering Committee Lead of the Ontario Assembly on Workplace Democracy in 2022. She also co-founded and serves as a member of the board of directors of Democracy In Practice, a non-profit dedicated to democratic experimentation, innovation, and capacity-building.

Rafael Gomez is professor of employment relations at the University of Toronto. He has served as the Director of the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources from 2015-2020, and reappointed as Director July 1, 2021. He received a BA in economics and political science from Glendon College (York University) and an MA in economics and a PhD in industrial relations from the University of Toronto. His previous appointments include the London School of Economics as a senior lecturer in management and industrial relations. He has been invited to conduct research and lecture at universities around the world, including Madrid, Moscow, Munich, Beijing and Zurich. In 2005 he was awarded the Labor and Employment Relations Association’s John T. Dunlop Outstanding Scholar Award for exceptional contributions to international and comparative labour and employment research. In 2013-14 his book The Little Black Book for Managers was a UK business book business bestseller and in 2015 his book Small Business and the City was published by U of T/Rotman press. His current research examines the role of unions and other labour market institutions in the provision of employee voice and what this means for workers and broader democratic engagement.

Angelo DiCaro is the Director of Research for Unifor, Canada’s largest private sector union. Angelo leads Unifor’s strategic economic and policy research, and oversees the union’s auto sector policy and international trade policy work, among other key files. Angelo represented Unifor as part of the federal government’s Labour Consultation Group during recent NAFTA renegotiations. He participates in various national and international trade research fora, including through the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the IndustriALL global union Working Group on Trade and Industrial Policy, and was involved in the historic round of Unifor-Detroit 3 collective bargaining in 2020. Angelo is a graduate of York University’s Labour Studies Program and holds a Master’s Degree in Industrial Relations from the University of Toronto. Prior to coming on staff in 2006, Angelo was a supermarket clerk and union steward at Dominion Stores (now Metro) and is still a proud member of Unifor Local 414. He lives in Milton, Ontario.

Greta Whipple is an actor and labour organizer, with a particular focus on empowering workers in the retail sector. In partnership with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) she organized a successful union drive at Indigo Books & Music’s Yorkdale location in 2021, and served on the bargaining committee to negotiate a landmark first contract for her workplace. Greta participated in the Ontario Assembly on Workplace Democracy in 2022, and has also spoken about her experience with unionizing at the Young Workers Rights Hub at Toronto Metropolitan University."

Additional reading:

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

 

#6 - May 24, 2023
”Assessing Progress with ‘Zero Long-Term Unemployment Territory’ in France and Belgium:
Key Lessons for the Design of a Job Guarantee”

Time: 7am San Francisco | 8am Mexico City | 9am Bogota | 10am Santiago-NYC-Montréal | 4pm Paris-Johannesburg | 7.30pm New Delhi | 9pm Jakarta | 12am Sydney

Location: online

Organizers: #DemocratizingWork and OSUN Economic Democracy Initiative

Speakers: Auriane Lamine (Professor of law at the University of Louvain), Antonin Gregorio (Director, Territoires Zéro Chômeurs de Longue Durée, France), Timothée Duverger (Professor at Sciences Po Bordeaux, Centre Emile Durkheim. President of the TZCLD Observatory)

Chair: Pavlina Tcherneva (Bard College, #DW Core Group member)

Over the past five years, France has been experimenting with the idea of a Job Guarantee. The original approach aimed to create jobs for long-term unemployed individuals who were willing to get back to work. This led to the implementation of the "Zero Long-term Unemployment Territory" experiment, which was set in place by the central public national authority but is administered locally through a participatory method that gives aspiring workers a voice and involves all public and private stakeholders.

The program has now been expanded to more than 50 locations, providing an opportunity to assess how a Job Guarantee program could be grounded in the three principles of the #DemocratizingWork Manifesto. This program’s emancipatory potential for fighting involuntary unemployment has inspired regional authorities in Belgium to adopt a similar approach. The panel will critically evaluate the current conditions for the successful deployment of such a program in Belgium.

The panelists, Antonin Gregorio and Timothée Duverger, will provide their perspectives on the situation in France, with Gregorio focusing on the practical aspects and Duverger evaluating public policies. Law professor Auriane Lamine will assess the conditions necessary for a successful deployment of such a project in Belgium.

Auriane Lamine is a legal scholar who specializes in Labour Law (PhD Louvain 2016, LLM Harvard 2013) and a philosopher (MA Louvain 2014). She is currently an Associate Professor of law at the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium), where she teaches International, European and Belgian Labour and social security law. She is a member of the CRIDES Research Center (Centre de Recherches Entreprise, Droit et Société, UClouvain). Her recent work focuses on the comparative study of collective bargaining systems, the regulation of multinational firms and non-standard forms of work.

Antonin Gregorio With a degree in social law and political science, he began his professional career at the National Assembly as a social advisor. He will follow the examination of reforms in the field of social law. In 2015, he accompanied Laurent Grandguillaume, then a deputy, in the writing and parliamentary review of the law that will allow the "Territoires zéro chômeur de longue durée" project to be experimented on 10 territories. In September 2019, he joined the national team of the association Territoires zéro chômeur de longue durée, as executive director.

Timothée Duverger is a research engineer at Sciences Po Bordeaux and a researcher at the Centre Émile Durkheim. At Sciences Po Bordeaux, he is the director of the ‘Territoires de l’ESS’ Chair and the ‘Économie sociale et solidaire et innovation sociale’ Master’s course and co-directs the Executive Master’s course ‘Stratégies, Territoires et projets innovants dans l’ESS’. His research work deals with public policies, intellectual history and social history concerning in the field of social and solidarity economy. He is president of the Observatory of « Territories with Zero long-term Unemployment ». He has recently published L’économie sociale et solidaire (coll. Repères, La découverte, 2023).

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

 

#7- June 21, 2023
”The Need for a Universal Job Guarantee.
Discussing the launch of the United Nations Special Report by Olivier De Schutter”

Time: Time: 7am San Francisco | 8am Mexico City | 9am Bogota | 10am Santiago-NYC-Montréal | 4pm Paris-Johannesburg | 7.30pm New Delhi | 9pm Jakarta | 12am Sydney

Location: online

Organizers: #DemocratizingWork and OSUN Economic Democracy Initiative

Speakers: Olivier De Schutter (Professor UCLouvain and Sciences Po Paris, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights), Jean Drèze (Visiting Professor, Department of Economics, Ranchi University), Rania Antonopoulos (Senior Scholar and Program Director, Levy Economics Institute, Bard College)

Chair: Adelle Blackett (McGill University, #DW Core Group member)

In this Workshop, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Prof. Olivier De Schutter, will discuss a report he will present to the United Nations Human Rights Council on June 28th, explaining how the introduction of a job guarantee can contribute to the full realization of the right to work as an enforceable legal right. We will discuss the benefits of the Job Guarantee, both to the individual and the community, which make it an essential component of the “just transition” and of the new eco-social contract. In the footstep of our #DW core member and expert Pavlina Tcherneva, this workshop will provide an opportunity to highlight how the proposal of the Job Guarantee is central to the rethinking of the world of work around the three principles of the #DemocratizingWork Manifesto: democratizing, decommodifying, and decarbonizing.

Olivier De Schutter. Professor at UCLouvain and Sciences Po Paris, is since 2020 the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. As an expert on economic and social rights in the context of economic globalization, he was formerly a member of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (2015-2020) and the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food (2008-2014).

Jean Drèze. Development economist, is currently Visiting Professor at Ranchi University in India. He has made wide-ranging contributions to development economics and public policy, particularly to India. His recent books include An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions (with Amartya Sen) and Sense and Solidarity: Jholawala Economics for Everyone. Jean is also active in various campaigns for economic and social rights. His work helped to design some critical social legislation in India, including the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

Rania Antonopoulos. Ph.D. in economics from the New University School for Social Research. During her tenure as Alternate Minister of Labor of Greece, she implemented an Employment Guarantee program. She served as Member of Parliament, and Ambassador of Greece to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). As a Senior Scholar, she led a team of Levy Institute researchers studying the impact on poverty and gender equality of employment guarantee policies in South Africa, India, and Greece. She developed a new statistical measure of Income and Time Poverty, LIMTIP, which exposes the inequalities created by time deficits in household income and living standards.

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

 

Support for this workshop series comes from the Belgian FISD