Labor Day Seminar Brings Together Workers and Local Leadership

Posted in Events What's Happening at the KI

“Today, workers are facing enormous obstacles at the federal level politically, and in the workplace, especially with the onset of Artificial Intelligence. […] We find ourselves living through a turning point in capitalism – not unlike the last historical turning point, which was the rise of industrial capitalism. Today’s discussion is about how workers can make new headway in some cities and states, and be engaged in local experimentation for enforcing workers’ rights,” KI director Lane Windham shared during the opening of the Georgetown Workers’ Rights Institute’s Labor Day event.

The Workers’ Rights Institute and the KI brought together labor organizers, Amazon workers, researchers, and policymakers from the United States and Poland to examine new approaches to worker power, shop-floor governance, and enforcement of labor standards. The discussion was framed around the crisis of labor law enforcement and how co-enforcement can intervene in the crisis.

Local DC leadership discussed efforts from workers and how the city can keep them safe.

Speakers Included:

Luc Rene, driver at Amazon’s “last mile” warehouse DBK4 in Queens, NY and organizer at Teamsters Local 804

Bartek Kurzyca, long-haul truck driver for Amazon in Europe, organizer at OZZ Inicjatywa Pracownicza (Workers’ Initiative Union in Poland) and member of the union’s Executive Council 

Nantina Vgontzas, assistant professor, Labor Studies, CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies

Sanjay Pinto, sociologist based in Brooklyn, senior fellow at the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois Chicago, fellow at the Worker Institute at Cornell ILR and Data & Society affiliate

Aparna Raj, Democratic nominee for DC Council, Ward 1

Moderated by Marta Rozmysłowicz, Affiliate Fellow Workers’ Rights Institute.

View the seminar here:  Seminar Zoom recording