By: Adina Aamir, Cornell MPS Global Development – Class of ’23
On October 6, DC LERA hosted a webinar for its 3rd Annual Labor Law Forum to discuss US and international perspectives on sexual harassment in organized and unorganized workplaces.
Moderated by Tequila Brooks, a Comparative Labor and Employment Law Scholar, the discussion featured presentations by ITUC’s expert on gender equality and domestic work issues Marieke Koning, International Coordinator of the Asia Floor Wage Alliance Anannya Bhattacharjee, adjunct professor at University of Maryland and Michigan State University Stacy Hickox, and Princeton University postdoctoral fellow Garima Sharma.
Introducing the discussion, Marieke Koning talked about the ITUC’s #RatifyC190 Campaign which calls on governments to adopt the International Labour Organization’s Convention 190 (C190)1 on Violence and Harassment in the World of Work.
C190 is the first international treaty to recognize the right of everyone to a world of work free from violence and harassment, including gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH).
Representing 191 million workers from 167 countries, the ITUC has been supporting its affiliates in their initiatives to promote and advance C190. Marieke mentioned that countries like Lesotho, South Africa, and France have ratified C190, and other like Pakistan and Indonesia have made progress in making dignified and decent work a reality for all.
Following Marieke’s presentation on ITUC’s international efforts to end GBVH, Anannya Bhattacharjee shifted the focus to an innovative example of reducing violence and harassment in clothing factories. The Dindigul Agreement, a first of its kind in the Asian garment industry, delivers power and support to women workers to monitor, prevent, and remediate GBVH collectively and with management.
Negotiated by the Tamil Nadu Textile and Common Labour Union (TTCU), the agreement was established in response to the horrific violence and harassment that took the life of Jeyasre Kathiravel at a factory supplying to H&M. It legally holds both suppliers and fashion brands accountable to prevent such violence in their factories and has led to a remarkable 67% decrease in employee attrition rates and 98% grievance resolution rate.
After these two examples from the World of Work, Stacy Hickox turned the conversation to academic research on GBVH reduction. She discussed findings from the paper she co-authored with Michelle Kaminsky questioning whether arbitration, a form of alternative dispute resolution designated in collective bargaining agreements to resolve conflicts between employers and employees, is an effective method for resolving issues of workplace harassment. In cases where employers discipline employees based on reports of harassment, an alleged harasser can file a grievance requiring their employer to show a just cause for disciplining them. Hickox and Kaminsky found that in 54.1% of arbitrations they examined for the period 2008-2018 the discipline of the alleged harassers was upheld, while discipline was reduced in 29.7% and overturned in 16.2% of cases.
Their overall finding was that arbitration can sometimes offer a resolution in such situations but only if supported by an adequate policy framework. Rather than relying on arbitrators to eradicate harassment, Stacy recommends that employers and unions work together to holistically address the issue.
After some very engaging presentations, the last panelist of the series was Garima Sharma a postdoctoral scholar from Princeton University who discussed why workplaces are not better designed for women in this paper and explained how union agreements can support female-friendly jobs.
She used the example of Central Unica dos Trabalhadores (CUT), the largest trade union in Brazil, as it instituted a 50% quota for female representation in its leadership, and compared their performance with other unions that had not implemented any reforms. The study noted an increase in female centered amenities both in paper and practice with no change in wages, greater female workforce participation, and no evidence to indicate men were worse off due to the reforms. She concluded that firms can decrease the gender wage gap by simply shifting institutional priorities.
In summary, the webinar brought together various examples of frontline progress made to protect women in the workplace, and provided recommendations on areas of improvements, particularly highlighting the close collaboration between stakeholders such as unions, employers and international organizations required to reduce GBVH.
- C190 is one of the most comprehensive set of guidelines advancing international labor law by defining violence and harassment as a range of unacceptable behaviors and practices that result in physical, psychological, sexual, or economic harm, and notes the disproportionate impact of such acts faced by those of a particular gender or sex. It extends these protections to all workers, whether formal, informal, interns, applications, and more in all sectors, in the full World of Work. This includes any acts of violence and harassment occurring in the course of, linked with or arising out of work such as in spaces where workers take rest breaks, sanitary facilities, work-related trips, and employer-provided accommodation in addition to the workplace.
On September 6, 2023, the DC LERA Board of Governors adopted a measure designating 2-3 new positions on the board for Student Board Members. The purpose of these positions is to bring a student perspective to the board and serve as a short- and long-term organizational succession strategy.
Takahito Fushiki, Labor Attache with the Embassy of Japan, has joined the Board of Governors of DC LERA. He replaces Yoshi Suzuki, who returned to Japan in August 2023.
The pandemic hit the U.S. economy hard, with the unemployment rate soaring to 14.7% in April 2020, but it soon recovered to pre-pandemic levels, and the turbulence in the U.S. labor market has been remarkable. From the perspective of Japan, which is generally regarded as stable internationally (not only unemployment rate but also wage increase…), it should be admired the positive aspects of the dynamism of the U.S. economy. On the other hand, it looks like that there appears to be a steadily increasing number of voices in the U.S. that are concerned about the weak safety net for those left behind in the economic growth and calling for policy responses.
On June 27, 2023, the ILO Office for US and Canada hosted a DC LERA panel on Trade & Policy Tools to Address Forced Labor in Global Supply Chains. The featured speakers were Allison Gill of GLJ-ILRF, Dean Pinkert of the Corporate Accountability Lab, and Kevin Willcuts of the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs. Kevin Cassidy, Executive Director of the ILO Office for US and Canada, gave opening remarks and hosted a reception afterward. The event brought together labor professionals, academics, government officials, internationalists, students, community activists, human rights advocates, and trade attorneys to learn the latest about trade and policy tools to address forced and child labor in global supply chains.
Kevin Cassidy of the ILO gave a broad overview and update on the ILO’s efforts in developing resources and issuing reports on the growing area of international, bi-lateral, and multilateral trade agreements containing labor provisions.
Dean Pinkert of Corporate Accountability built on Ms. Gill’s overview by delving more deeply into the use of legal provisions in the 1930 U.S. Tariff Act (the U.S. Forced Labor Ban in Sec. 307) and in the 1974 U.S. Trade Act (the Relief From Unfair Trade Practices in Sec. 301). Advocates and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) have made inroads in excluding goods made under forced labor excluded from the U.S. market. Use of Sec. 307 Relief From Unfair Trade Practices is still cutting edge and in its infancy.
Kevin Willcutts of U.S. DOL’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs spoke about non-trade mechanisms like assistance and training programs and the adoption of industry-wide standards and certification programs to eliminate child labor and the worst forms of child labor in cocoa supply chains in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. Mr. Willcutts noted that the informality of cocoa farming and production are barriers to progress in eliminating forced and child labor in the cocoa sector.
By 
First, Dr. Silvia unpacked the cases of two Nissan plants in Smyrna, Tennessee and Canton, Mississippi, where the UAW failed to win a union, but for different reasons. In the case of Smyrna, TN, the UAW was unsuccessful mainly because of a set of anti-union innovations oriented at creating the idea that managers and the rank-in-file were all one. For example, they all wore the same uniform, and the company eliminated the executive cafeteria. The company also engaged in more aggressive tactics. For example, the company gave workers reduced-rate rental cars, screened workers to identify union sympathizers, installed monitors in the workplace through which they ran negative information about the UAW, and had one-on-one meetings to check on workers’ satisfaction. These tactics were part of the ‘Union Avoidance Playbook’ devised by Nissan’s Head of Operations, Marvin Runyon, and were key to preventing organizing efforts in this plant.
Dr. Silvia also explained how international cooperation can help in organizing efforts, highlighting the UAW’s success at Daimler Trucks North America in Mount Holly, North Carolina. After winning the union election and negotiating for their first contract for almost two years, the UAW realized they would have to strike. However, before doing so, a few of the union representatives traveled to Germany and managed to get the head of the Daimler Group Works Council, Karl Feuerstein, to support their cause. The UAW got its first contract about two months after Feuerstein phoned the American executives.
During the discussion, a DC LERA member mentioned the report “
The Board of Governors of the Washington, DC Chapter of the Labor and Employment Relations Association voted to accept the nomination of 
On May 4th, 2023, a DC LERA panel was held at the George Washington University School of Business to discuss the labor-management relations in professional baseball, with a focus on the minor leagues. Speaking that day was Brad Snyder, a Professor of Law at Georgetown University who has published 
In attendance were members of DC LERA and baseball fanatics. Guests ranged from current university students simply interested in sports to foreign dignitaries from various embassies. All were intrigued to learn about the unspoken complexities of labor relations within the minor league, a topic the MLB too often attempts to hide from the public eye.
Topics covered varied from player salaries being below the poverty level to conditions of baseball academies in Latin America. Mr. Rosenblum-Larson had much to share regarding the process of unionizing the minor leagues and the integration into the MLBPA, the union representing all major and minor league athletes. He went into great detail about the first ratified minor-league collective bargaining agreement discussing both the huge improvements in the agreement and the areas where progress is still needed. Professor Snyder spoke about past instances of players being too afraid to speak-out against Major League Baseball due to concerns for retaliation, relating to Rosenblum-Larson’s own story of being released from the team after revealing sub-optimal working conditions in a 
The event was co-sponsored by the