Subordination and Discrimination in GSCs: Recognizing Diversity and Building Unity

Mark Anner is a Professor of Labor and Employment Relations, and Political Science, and he is the Director of the Center for Global Workers' Rights at Penn State University. He is also the chair of the MPS Program in Labor and Global Workers' Rights, which is a part of the Global Labour University network. He holds a Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University and a Master's Degree in Latin American Studies from Stanford University. Dr. Anner's research examines freedom of association and corporate social responsibility, labor law reform and enforcement, and workers' rights in apparel global value chains in Central America and Vietnam. His publications include Solidarity Transformed: Labor Responses to Globalization and Crisis in Latin America* (Cornell University Press, 2011). Before beginning his academic career, Mark Anner spent eleven years working with labor unions and labor research centers in Central America and Brazil, and he was a union organizer in Boston.

I am a feminist organizer, unionist and activist who believes in the total liberation of all categories of workers. My work focuses on making policies, legal frameworks and structures responsive to the needs of all categories especially women. My research interest is in GBVH, Gender, politics, governance etc.

School of Labor and Industrial Relations, University of the Philippines

I teach courses on theories in industiral relations, labour and the economy, industrial relations and national development, and human resource development at the national level. My research involves the following topics: non-standard and precarious employment in ASEAN and East Asia; collective representation and collective action among workers in informal employment; union renewal; the informal economy; industrial relations in micro and small enterprises; trade unions and social movements; comparative industrial relations; wages and productivity in the Philippines; and 'alternatives' to capitalism. I engage with trade unions and other worker organisations in the Philippines and in other countries in terms of collaborative research, training and education, program development and evaluation, and other forms of technical support.

Saray Lopez Aragon is the current General Secretary of SINTRAICA (Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Industria de la Caña - Union of Sugarcane Industry Workers) at Taboga sugar refinery in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. She has worked at Taboga for 37 years and has been on the Executive Board of SINTRAICA for 30 years, six of them as General Secretary. She is a tireless advocate for all workers and has led SINTRAICA as it has taken on the fight for Nicaraguan migrant workers who are critical to sugar production across Costa Rica.

Janhavi Dave is the International Coordinator of HomeNet International and was formerly the Coordinator of HomeNet South Asia. She previously worked with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO). She has over 15 years of work experience of organising and building membership-based organisations of informal economy women workers.

I am a social anthropologist and labor activist, both conducting research/teaching at GEALA (Afrolatinamerican Studies Group), Univ. of Buenos Aires and designing/implementing employment policies at the Min. of Labour, Employment and Social Security of Argentina. While I have been active in the labour world since 2000, I became a trade unionist in 2017 at the State Workers Union of Argentina (ATE, Asociación Trabajadores del Estado), during the harsh advancement of conservative policies in the region. I have conducted applied research in my native Argentina and in countries along the global south, including Moçambique, Nicaragua, Jamaica, South Africa, Senegal, Guine-Bissau, Cameroun, Angola, India and Bolivia. My main research and political interests rely on postcolonial theory and race, racism, and ethnicity through labour relations, both formal and "informal".