News

Labor and COVID-19: An International Perspective

Posted April 2020

On April 9, 2020 Center Senior Instructional Designer, Amri Joyner attended the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor webinar titled Labor and COVID-19: An International Perspective. The Initiative’s director, Joseph McCartin, opened the video conference by introducing a distinguished panel of labor advocates from the U.S., Spain, Taiwan, and Germany. Moderated by Leon Fink, Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago, historian, and editor of Labor: Studies in Working-Class History, each panelist responded to three questions:

·      What are the biggest problems now facing your country’s workers – both those still employed
      (including frontline health and service sector workers) and those suddenly unemployed?
·      How have government or trade union actions responded (or not) to these problems?
·      What further actions, whether at the national or international level, are necessary to end the
      COVID-19 crisis?

The panelists were Cathy Feingold who is both the Director of the AFL-CIO International Department and Deputy President of the International Trade Union Confederation, Lucia Ortiz Sanz from Spain, Kylie Kuei-Yan Liao from Taiwan, Anja Wehler-Schoeek from Germany, and JJ Rosenbaum, Director of Global Labor Justice that is based in the U.S. Each panelist discussed their region’s response to Covid-19 paying particular attention to migrant farm workers and health and safety of frontline workers.

View the webinar recording at https://globalhealth.georgetown.edu/events/labor-and-covid-19-an-international-perspective
Also check out the AFL-CIO COVID-19 Priorities statement at https://aflcio.org/covid-19/priorities