Study Group: Workers' Rights in the Global Economy Session 2

Global workers’ rights and international labor standards are critical to economic growth and inclusive development for nations around the world, and they are crucial for modern U.S. trade policymaking. Despite increasing recognition across political ideologies that labor rights, particularly the right to organize unions and collectively bargain, must be protected, workers continue to face inordinate obstacles to exercise those rights and are too often subjected to intimidation, discrimination, violence, or worse. In addition, forced labor persists in public and private sectors and in developed and developing countries. In recent years, the US has pioneered new trade policies and agreements to enforce labor standards internationally, and the European Union is currently advancing a new corporate accountability policy for due diligence to reduce human rights – and labor rights – and environmental impacts in European supply chains across the Global North and South. This study group will explore systemic challenges to labor rights and existing efforts and leading models to raise labor standards – including through trade policies and agreements, supply chain due diligence and transparency laws, and international agreements between labor organizations and companies.   

Registration is capped at 20 participants. Registration will be first come, first served.  

Location / Time 

This study group will take place four times over the Fall 2025 semester on the following dates, at 5pm:  

Session 1: Tuesday, November 4 

Session 2: Monday, November 10 

Session 3: Monday, November 17 

Session 2 -   Trade and Labor Rights: Protecting Freedom of Association and Ending Forced Labor  

• Read the USMCA Fact Sheet: https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/fact-sheets/2024/september/fact-sheet-usmca-rapid-response-mechanism-delivers-workers 
• For USMCA context, CSR summary: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF11308  
• Visit the website of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at https://www.cbp.gov/trade/forced-labor and https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/trade/uyghur-forced-labor-prevention-act-statistics to get an idea of the organization and its work.  
• Extra: Read any 2 witness testimonies from trade hearing: https://democrats-waysandmeans.house.gov/legislation/hearings/trade-subcommittee-hearing-global-challenge-forced-labor-supply-chains  

Moderator/Facilitator 

Kelly M. Fay Rodríguez was the lead diplomat for international labor policy for the Biden-Harris Administration at the U.S. Department of State. As the Special Representative for International Labor Affairs, she led the Department's Office of International Labor Affairs, where she launched and implemented the first-ever Presidential Memorandum to promote labor in U.S. foreign policy and trade. Previously, she served as Democratic counsel for the Ways and Means’ Trade Subcommittee in Congress, where she led labor-trade policy work. Kelly graduated from City University of New York School of Law, where she was a Haywood Burns Human and Civil Rights Fellow and completed the Human Rights and Gender Justice Clinic. She also earned a bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies and Spanish from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. She comes from a proud union and immigrant family, with roots in Worcester, Massachusetts and the Dominican Republic.