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Workers’ Rights as Human Rights
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Instructors
Cornell University
Prof. Lance Compa
Prof. James Gross
International Labour Organization
Susanne Bruyère
Giuseppe Casale
Karen Curtis
Frank Hagemann
Christiane Kuptsch
Peter Matz
Barbara Murray
Caroline O'Reilly
Jukka Takala
Constance Thomas
Lee Swepston
Cornell University
Prof. Lance Compa
Lance Compa is a Senior Lecturer at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations in Ithaca, New York, where he teaches U.S. labor law and international labor rights. He is co-editor of Human Rights, Labor Rights, and International Trade (University of Pennsylvania Press 2002) and the author of the 2000 Human Rights Watch report Unfair Advantage: Workers' Freedom of Association in the United States under International Human Rights Standards (republished by Cornell University Press in August 2004 with a new introduction and conclusion). Compa is currently serving as lead researcher in a new Human Rights Watch project on workers' rights in the U.S. meat and poultry industry.
Before turning to international labor law practice and teaching, Compa worked for many years as a trade union organizer and negotiator, principally for the United Electrical Workers (UE) and the Newspaper Guild. He serves on the boards of directors of the International Labor Rights Fund and the U.S. Labor Education in the Americas project.
Compa is a 1969 graduate of Fordham University and a 1973 graduate of Yale Law School. He also undertook studies abroad at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris, France (1967-1968) and at the Universidad de Chile in Santiago, Chile (1972-1973).
Prof. James Gross
Professor Gross is the Editor of the recently published Cornell University Press volume Workers' Rights as Human Rights. In addition, he has published a three volume study of the NLRB and U.S. labor policy. The most recent volume, Broken Promise: The Subversion of American Labor Relations Policy, 1947-1994 was published by Temple University Press in 1995. He has also written Teachers on Trial: Values, Standards and Equity in Judging Conduct and Competence. His other research on various topics in labor law and labor arbitration have appeared in the University of Buffalo Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, Syracuse Law Review, the Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Arbitration Journal, Labor History, the Labor Law Journal, the Chicago-Kent Law Review, the Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal the Catholic University Law Review, and the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Labor and Employment Law.
Professor Gross teaches Labor Law, Labor Arbitration, and a course entitled Values, Rights and Justice in Economics, Law, and Industrial Relations. He received his B.S. from LaSalle College, M.A. from Temple University, and Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin. He is a member of National Academy of Arbitrators and on the labor arbitration panels of the American Arbitration Association, Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service and New York State Public Employment Relations Board, as well as being a panelist named in several contracts.
International Labour Organization
Susanne M. Bruyère
Ph.D., CRC, is the Director of the Employment and Disability Institute at Cornell University in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations - Extension Division. She is currently the Project Director and a Principal Investigator of numerous research efforts that relate to employment outcomes to people with disabilities. The National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) Research and Demonstration Project that she is focusing on for this session is a project in collaboration with the Society for Human Resource Management, to address ways to improve the employment practices covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The current focus in the past two years has been on Information Technology (IT) accessibility in the workplace for applicants and employees with disabilities. A similar such study of federal agency equal employment and human resource practices for people with disabilities has also been funded to Cornell University by the Presidential Task Force on Employment of Adults with Disabilities (U.S. Department of Labor). Dr. Bruyère also serves as Project Director and Co-Principal Investigator of the Cornell Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (RRTC) for Economic Research on Employment Policy for Persons with Disabilities, and a co-Principal Investigator on the Cornell Disability Demographics and Statistics RRTC. Susanne holds a doctoral degree in Rehabilitation Counseling Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is a Fellow in the American Psychological Association, and Past President of the Division (22) of Rehabilitation Psychology of the American Psychological Association (APA), the National Council on Rehabilitation Education (NCRE), and the American Rehabilitation Counseling Association (ARCA).
Karen Curtis
Karen Curtis is a graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School and majored in Philosophy at Barnard College. She joined the ILO Standards Department in 1988 after serving a fellowship at the Minnesota Lawyers for International Human Rights. Ms. Curtis, head of the Freedom of Association Section, has been working in the Freedom of Association Branch for the last ten years. She coordinates the work of the ILO secretariat for the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations in respect of the freedom of association Conventions. Since January 2004, Ms. Curtis had the responsibility of chief of the Secretariat for the Commission of Inquiry established to examine trade union rights violations in Belarus.
Christiane Kuptsch
Research Officer, International Institute for Labour Studies
Christiane Kuptsch studied Law at the Universities of Hamburg, Strasbourg and Geneva and subsequently earned a degree in International Relations ("Licence en relations internationales") from University of Geneva in 1990. She also holds a 1992 "Diplôme d'Etudes Supérieures" of the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva (IUHEI) for post graduate studies in Political Science.
Between 1992 and 1994 Kuptsch worked as Associate Expert for the ILO's Migration and Population Branch, undertaking research on Official Development Assistance as a means to reduce emigration pressures and migration for training among other things. From 1995 to May 2001 she held the post of Research Officer at the International Social Security Association (ISSA) in Geneva. She was editor of "Trends in Social Security", a quarterly publication in English, French, German and Spanish during this time. Since 1995 she has been a regular contributor to the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" on developments in social protection.
In June 2001 Kuptsch took up her work at the International Institute for Labour Studies. She was initially in charge of various education and outreach activities; since March 2003 she is Project Coordinator of "Sustainable Migration Solutions". This project combines research with diverse policy dialogue activities.
Kuptsch's publications include works on social protection and a-typical forms of work; disability policies; social security privatization; the protection of migrant workers in irregular situations; the migration of students and trainees; and temporary foreign workers programmes.
Constance Thomas
Constance Thomas is the Chief of the Equality and Non Discrimination Section of the International Labour Standards Department. She has worked in the field and in Headquarters since 1984. In the field from 1994-1998 she was a Senior Specialist on Labour Law, International Labour Standards and Gender Issues. Before joining the ILO, Ms. Thomas was a member of a law firm in San Francisco and practiced employment, labour and civil rights law in the State of California, USA.
Dr. J. Takala
Director, InFocus Programme on Safety and Health at Work and the Environment, SafeWork
International Labour Office, ILO Holds a BSc and an MSc in Mechanical Engineering, and a Doctorate in Engineering (D.Sc. Tech.) from the Tampere University of Technology (Finland); studied Engineering at the Helsinki University of Technology, Industrial Economics at the Helsinki School of Economics and Occupational Safety and Health at the Tampere University of Technology (Finland).
Worked in metal industry as a design engineer from 1968-70 and for the Helsinki University of Technology as assistant lecturer from 1971-73.
Held the posts of Inspector, Safety Engineer, Chief Engineer and Chief of Machine Safety Bureau in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and the Ministry of Labour in Finland from 1973.
Joined the ILO as Chief Technical Adviser and Expert in Occupational Safety and Health in Nairobi (Kenya) in March 1978 and then in Bangkok (Thailand) in June 1983. Appointed Chief of the ILO's International Occupational Safety and Health Information Centre, CIS, in September 1986 and Chief of the Safety and Health Information Services Programme in January 1994. Appointed Chief of the Occupational Safety and Health Branch in June 1996. Appointed Director of the InFocus Programme on Safety and Health at Work and the Environment (SafeWork) of the International Labour Office from 1 October 1999.
Caroline O'Reilly
Caroline O'Reilly has been working at the ILO since late 1998, first dealing with women's employment issues and, since 2000, with the programme on promoting the ILO's 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. Since 2002, she has focused on the eradication of forced labour, within the "Special Action Programme to combat forced labour" that was set up in that year. Her particular current interest, for research and operational activities, is the problem of bonded labour in South Asia (India, Nepal and Pakistan).
Prior to joining the ILO, Ms O'Reilly worked primarily with the UK government's international development programme, in the field of natural resources management and rural/agricultural development. She has a BA honours degree in geography and social anthropology and a MSc in Agricultural Economics. She has worked overseas long-term in Belize, Haiti and Vietnam, and has undertaken short-term assignments in many other countries.
Lee Swepston
Lee Swepston is Chief of the Equality and Employment Branch, and Human Rights Coordinator, in the International Labour Standards Department of the International Labour Organization in Geneva.
Mr. Swepston is a US citizen. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and took his legal degree at Columbia University in New York. After one year with the International Commission of Jurists, a human rights non-governmental organization in Geneva, he joined the ILO in 1973. He has been Regional Adviser on International Labour Standards in English-speaking Africa and in the Caribbean, and served in other standards-related posts before taking up his present responsibilities. These include responsibility for the supervision of the ILO's standards concerning equality, migrant workers, indigenous and tribal peoples, and employment policy issues. His responsibilities also include coordination of the ILO's relations with other intergovernmental organizations concerning human rights questions.
Mr. Swepston is the author of a number of books and articles on international human rights, international labour standards, indigenous and tribal peoples, child labour and related subjects.
Law Degree, National-Kapodestrian University Law School, Athens, Greece, 1991; LL.M. magna cum laude, Edinburgh University Law School, U.K., 1993; Diplôme d'études supérieures in international relations, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland, 1996; Ph.D. in international relations, Graduate Institute of International Studies, 2004; Visiting Scholar, Yale Law School, New Haven CT, USA, 1997-1999; with the ILO since 1999; Legal/Labour Law Specialist, Freedom of Association Branch, since 2002.
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