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ILO hosts DC LERA panel on Trade & Policy Tools to Address Forced Labor

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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.

Allison Gill of GLJ-ILRF used a number of case studies to show how worker rights advocates and broad coalitions of labor, business, human rights, and community activists utilize trade and other mechanisms to eliminate forced labor from global supply chains. The case studies she discussed included: the Cotton Campaign, the Coalition to End Uyghur Forced Labor, and the Dindigul Agreement. Some of the legal and policy mechanisms utilized to eliminate forced labor include GSP, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, ILO supervisory mechanisms, and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. The Dindigul Agreement is an enforceable global supply chain agreement negotiated by the Tamil Nadu Textile and Common Labour Union in India, clothing manufacturer Eastman Exports, global brand H&M, and other social partners.

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.

RESOURCE LIST: Trade & Policy Tools to Address Forced Labor in Global Supply Chains: 2023.06.27 DC LERA Forced Labor Resources List

Event background and speaker biographies: 2023.06.27 01 Intro DC LERA Trade & Policy Tools Forced Labor

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DC LERA welcomes the German Embassy’s new representative Yasmin Hilpert to Board

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Yasmin Hilpert joined the DC LERA Board of Governors as the Representative of the German Embassy in July 2023.

Yasmin Hilpert is an experienced researcher, advisor and consultant on labor market development, digitization and technological innovation, social policy and inclusion. She serves as the Counselor for Labor and Social Affairs at the German Embassy in Washington DC since July 2023.

Yasmin comes from an extensive trade union background with experience in strategic development, labor issues and workforce development. She brings close to ten years of experience as a trainer and educator in a labor union vocational training institute in Germany. She worked as a strategic advisor to human rights and labor organizations to develop strategies for Industry 4.0 and workforce automation in light of technology innovation.

Since 2016, Yasmin has been working in academia and think tanks in the US, with a particular focus on the intersection of technology and industrial policy and the implications for the labor market, workers and qualifications.

Prior to her work in the U.S., she worked as leadership advisor at IndustriALL Global (50m members) in Geneva and IndustriALL Europe (7m members) in Brussels, the global and European umbrella organizations of all heavy industry manufacturing sectors. She engaged in high-level negotiations on a national and European level with employers and multi-national corporations and is regularly invited as a contributor to meetings of labor, business and government leaders in Germany, the UK and the EU as a whole.

Yasmin is an expert on metropolitan industrial policy and regional development, innovation infrastructure, and sustainability. With an interdisciplinary academic background in political science and with a focus on Industry 4.0, Yasmin holds a Masters from Humboldt University Berlin and is graduating with her Ph.D. in 2023. She regularly presents at academic conferences and was elected chair of the Research Committee 11 “Science and Politics” of the International Political Science Association in July 2023.

Welcome, Yasmin!