Free and open to the public. Reception to follow.

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This Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation Lecture will examine the nexus between labor rights and trade—a crucial topic as U.S. and global trade arrangements are being renegotiated. It will feature a conversation between two experts who have long worked to advance worker’s rights in the context of global trade—Dr. Bama Athreya, a visiting policy expert at the Weiser Diplomacy Center, and Ford School Professor of Practice Sander Levin. They will discuss historical challenges to including labor clauses in trade agreements and enforcing them. They will also review the labor clauses in recent trade deals, including the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement, and analyze the keys to implementing them effectively.

About the speakers:

Bama Athreya has more than twenty years’ experience on international labor issues, gender and social inclusion, and business and human rights. She is currently a Fellow at Open Society Foundations and an advisor to C&A Foundation. Most recently she worked for the US Agency for International Development as Senior Specialist for Labor, Gender and Social Inclusion, where she led the development of new guidance and internal training on gender and social inclusion, and assisted field Missions around the world to develop new programming to address labor rights, counter human trafficking and promote women’s economic empowerment. She was also one of USAID’s principal points of contact on Business and Human Rights. Previously she worked for the Solidarity Center, International Labor Rights Forum and Fontheim International and has been a consultant for the International Labour Organization. She has developed and led multi-country projects in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia on the rights of working women, on forced and child labor, and on ethical business practices. She has developed and led multi-stakeholder initiatives with global corporations on labor compliance, and has worked and written extensively on labor and gender in US trade policy. She served as one of the founding Board members of the Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium, an entity serving state and city governments in the United States who have adopted legislative or executive commitments to ethical procurement. In 2009 she was appointed by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to a special Consultative Group on Forced and Child Labor. She speaks French, Spanish, Chinese and Indonesian. She holds a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Michigan. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

The Honorable Sander "Sandy" Levin is a professor of practice at the Ford School, with support from the Towsley Foundation Policymaker in Residence program. For over 35 years, Levin represented residents of Southeast Michigan in Congress. In that time, Levin was actively involved in the major debates confronting our nation including welfare reform, the auto industry rescue, China's entry into the World Trade Organization, the Iran Nuclear Agreement, and every critical economic policy issue. He chaired the House Ways and Means Committee including during passage of the Affordable Care Act, drafted the language to add enforceable labor and environmental standards in trade agreements for the first time, and successfully fought the privatization of Social Security. Born in Detroit, Levin earned a BA from the University of Chicago, an MA in international relations from Columbia University, and a JD from Harvard University. He developed a private law practice, served two terms in the Michigan State Senate, ran for governor, and served as an assistant administrator at the Agency for International Development before his election to Congress.